^ POEMS 

ANTIQUE AND MODERN 



i 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

@^* itqt^lp !f tt. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



POEMS 
ANTIQUE AND MODEEN 



POEMS 



ANTIQUE AND MODERN 



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O 



BY 



CHARLES LEONARD MOORE 



^ JUiN 23 1883' , 

V Op WASHING"^ ^ 



PHILADELPHIA 
JOHN E. POTTER AND COMPANY 

1883 



.-^ 






COPYRIGHT 
By C. L. MOORE 

1S83 



All Rights Reserved. 



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CONTENTS. 



HERAKLES. 

DON SPIRIT 0. 

VERONA'S DOVES. 

MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

BANQUET OF DEATH. 

PROMETHEUS. 

LYRICS. 



HERAKLES. 



BOOK I. 

Audacious as the day and as august, 

Naked, and like another element 

New risen to control the older four, 

Behind his oxen up Cithseron's slope 

Rose Herakles. Like ocean waves they were, 

That heave the low-hung clouds upon their backs 

When the grey morn gives giants to the sea: 

Emerging mist-enlarged so they came, 

Tramping and tossing wild ; but Herakles, 

Beyond his mould enormous, with the might 

Of limb-erecting thought, twice terrible, 

Gigantic to all grim opposing bulks. 

Strode here and there amid them; lustful bulls 



HEBAKLES. 

By their air-tossing horns he seized, and sent 
Crashing unto their knees, and Avhere he saw 
The milkless-uddered, morning-eager kine. 
Whose snuffing nostrils wandered o'er cold rock. 
He drove them on, and the disordered herd 
Kept in one track, till from the exercise 
He gleamed all ruddy in a dewy bath. 
Like some tall personage of Autumn woods. 
Some cliff, enrobed with flaming leaves and vines. 
Decked so and dedicated to itself 
To need no adoration from the sun ; 
So seemed he, but unto his glory soon 
The outward inspiration of the morn 
Added, as ruddier at his back arose 
The horizon beast, reared sudden from its sleep 
To shake the sunlight from its shaggy hair. 

Roused, too, by fury of that rival birth. 

Right on his path erect, a lion stood, 

Enormous image, from obscurity 

Scarce disentangled ; whose dilating eyes, 

Tinged ominously with the opening dawn. 

Widened as to environ all the air; 

Its mane shook with the struggle of its heart. 

Its tail kept motion, while its stiffened feet 

Pushed at the massy rock, as to displace 



HEBAKLES. 

The grauite pillars of the poised earth ; 

Twin at creation with the njount it seemed, 

Set ever o'er the ebb and flow of day, 

O'er aerial alterations, and the dream 

Of lands below the horizon's dim line ; 

Seeing no life save of the sudden morn 

Or summer climbing up; hearing no sound 

Except the harsh, uneven eagle screams, 

Horrible thunders born within its ears. 

Stirred now from solitude, at last it heard 

The trampling of intruding oxen, heard 

Herakles shouting to his startled kine ; 

And with a rugged echo back it roared : 

At which the herd, for shelter, sank beneath 

The shadow of incensed Herakles, 

And of the larger bulls, who bowed their heads 

And planked for a rush their bulwark fronts. 

And waited ; not for long, for soon that bulk, 

That air-hung obstacle, rose from its lair. 

In vivid motion like a meteor's curve. 

And came upon the foremost of the herd, 

A bull strong-necked, and bore him down, and stretched 

Its paw to seize another; but at that 

A hurled rock from the hand of Herakles 

Buffeted it so roughly, that it rolled 

Over and over, grappling with the air. 



HEBAKLES. 

Then rose the bull, and in the lion's side 

Set its wide horns ; the hero, too, sprang there 

And placed his knee upon its shaggy breast, 

Granite on granite so superimposed. 

And with the weight and labor of his frame 

Oppressed its mass. A moment motionless 

It lay, while thronging to its eyes there came 

Such shapes as pass within the gates of hell. 

Then gently on the breast of Herakles 

It laid its paw, all velvet to the touch, 

And with slow motion of resistless might 

Kose resolutely up ; the hero, then, 

Anticipating action in despair. 

Sprang sudden to his feet, when the great beast 

So overbalanced fell again, and ere 

Its springy sinews could renew their strength. 

Instant in execution, Herakles 

The growling thunder from that summit threw 

To crash adown the boulders of the slope. 

But soon recovered on that rock it stood 
Couched concentrated ; awfully its eyes 
Dilating with the action of that shape 
Exultantly erected opposite. 

But the young hero with the struggle breathed, 
Waked to the proper life of his proud soul. 



BERAKLES. 

Felt victory throbbing in his violent blood; 

And like an eagle that long time has been 

Discomforted, with clouds, mewed up in mists, 

Who, glad with promise of the coming day. 

Invades the very palace of the sun. 

And soars* above his own accustomed haunts, 

So Herakles, and from his flaming head, 

Meridian shoulders, to earth -sj)urning feet, 

Glowed perilous unto that peril there. 

Huge growing on each other so they gazed. 

Lion and man, the while their eager limbs 

Without oppression on the even air 

Seemed to sleep ; the massive brute moved first 

With stealthily approaching steps aside, 

And sombre eyeballs ever unremoved ; 

In opposition then the hero passed 

With light and careful footing on the sward : 

So circling on each other, so they went. 

No motion and no breathing palpable 

Unto the idle, unrelieved wind : 

Their horizon and verge of all the earth 

Was in each other's eyes. So wKen they thrice 

In wheeling circle of such mortal flight 

Had passed, the hero all unconsciously 

On the abrupt verge of a vast ravine 

Stood balanced. All below, the depths were filled 



10 HEBAKLES. 

With giant-statued pines, each single tree 

A guest of night as gloomy as the god, 

Above which, in deliberate sj)leudor, burned 

The hero's form a moment, reeling ; then, 

With arms flung out, fallen downward, silent, dumb. 

But bringing thunders to that soundless place, 

A thing of tumult suddenly entranced. 

Encompassed with decay, colder than death. 

Dreams have there been within the chambered earth 

Of dread import ; but who has laid him down, 

Mid rotted vestiges of antique births, 

And woke to find a lion's fostering paw 

Prone on his breast, and woke to feel the hot, 

Uninterinitted breathings of a beast 

Waiting for motion to betray its prey? 

So Herakles awoke, and woke to hear, 

Like muttering thunder in some cave immured, 

The lion's voice, delayed and multiplied 

In the square passages of his mighty jaws 

And felt him rise impatient, and upon 

The tree-strewn .border of indented earth, 

Brushed by the hero's fall, stride up and down ; 

So sentineling silence in that lair 

With ii'ou step and sovran-flaming eye, 

That the grey solitude seemed more engirt 

With awful obstacles; each living thing, 



HERAKLES. 11 

t 

The gilded adder, or grey-liveried squirrel, 
The aspen, animal unto the air, 
Stiller than silence seemed, and the whole vale, 
Obscure before, was now oblivion. 
Last, with grave eyes, that hero-tethered beast 
Considered the air, lighter overhead, 
Where through the scattered leaves was left a path 
• For eagles, sometimes winging from that lair. 
And voicing his balked passion with low howls. 
Out, with reluctant pauses, did he pass 
Into obscurity, lost on the slopes. 
Till, on the valley verge, he reappeared. 
And set his face indignant 'gainst the day. 
And followed with his eyes the setting sun ; 
Then, to the hero in the depths below. 
He seemed a bronzed guai'dian of those gates. 
Whereby heaven empties its magnificence. 
Suddenly ramping, and so set for aye. 

But Herakles, like some imbedded shape, 

Sea-monster in the ocean's slimy ooze, 

Lay aidless and unnerved, till the night 

Dissolved the foliage, indistinct before. 

The tree-trunks, and each aerial space between, 

Into indifferent darkness, whose black bulk, 

In like oppression to the lion's paw, 



12 HEBAKLES. 

Weighed ou his heaving breast. Then could he take 

No breath but of thick air gelatinous, 

Corporeal respiration, half alive ; 

Then had he died, but his imperious heart 

Ufged his bruised limbs erect, to thrust away 

The horror fighting at his throat. He rose 

First on one arm, his every muscle swollen 

With the huge effort once, and once with pain, 

Then to his knee he struggled, making stiff 

His wrestling sinews for security; 

Last to full height he faltered, looming black, 

His golden statue smothered from surmise, 

A violent shadow only among shades. 

Battling for air, groping for certainty. 

But soon the moon, meridian, and at full, 

Beat with a flight of arrows on the gloom 

Of that wood-roofed ravine, and lines of light 

Cobwebbed its solid spaces of the dark : 

Then single leaves, to silver sudden turned, 

Showed veined, as if by some artificer ; 

Then the rays, plashing at some oak-tree root, 

Turned it to delicate transparency ; 

Tables of stone, strewn here and there, antique 

In mossy veneration, newly seemed 

Set, as with damask coverlids or silk. 



HERAKLES. 13 

"With fringed edges melting in the dusk ; 

Startling like fountains suddenly upflung, 

Trees in the light rose, flickered, and fell back ; 

Lanes, vistas opened, shifted, and reclosed 

With alterable visions to the eye 

Of ramparted, aisled tree-trunks, of steep banks, 

Of hollows sloped mysteriously away. 

Of level stretches lowly overbranched, 

Of bright brook surfaces, or cataract foam 

Hung like a wrecked cloud midway of the vale. 

So wrought the moonlight; but to Herakles 

It brought deliverance : its caressing touch 

Uncoiled his corded muscles and smoothed down 

His rugged front, and woke within his heart 

Imperious ardor to resist again 

The mighty beast, which, trampling overhead, 

Circled that sunk grave of his energies, 

Shadowy set against the orbed moon, 

Or silver-statued flashing opposite. 

But other force was needed than his hands 

For new encounter. Breathlessly he passed 

Into the thicket, gliding like a snake, 

With mufiled rustling, and a little stream 

Followed, that buoyantly still went astray, 

Betrayed down unintended slopes, into 

Deep and rock-gated pools, from whence it won 



14 EERAKLES. 

Difficult egress, undecidedly. 

Still, as he went, he tried the lissome trunks, 

Thickly about beset, and by the bark 

Judged for his purpose fit; the scaly birch 

He passed by, and the rough-indented oak, 

The willow, with its slippery load of withes ; 

And the smooth sycamore, the hemlock, too, 

Kough-coated chestnut, or the maple fine, 

Were not for him. At last a sapling ash, 

Straight shafted to its capital of leaves, 

Gave him content. He tore it from the earth. 

And, with a sharp flint from the bed beneath, 

Wrought it to even measure with his height. 

And stripped it of its sheath, and one side smoothed ; 

Then, with the toughest fibres, bound the ends 

And middle: 'gainst the earth his weight could bend 

It to half-circle, but could bend no more. 

Loosely with fibre then he strung the bow. 

And for his arrows sought the straightest lengths 

Of branched fir-trees, binding for the points 

Sharp, jagged flint-stones. Noiselessly he worked. 

Or with such murmurs as the forest owned ; 

But now, accoutred, he no more withheld 

The mighty surges of his heart. His face 

Wreathed o'er with laughter, and his brain was drunk 

With giddy triumph of the coming strife. 



HEBAKLES. 15 

He flung his arms abroad and seized an oak, 

And wrestled its hoar sinews till they shook ; 

He kissed the air as if it held within 

Ten thousand faces of a favoriug kin ; 

A squirrel passed ; he seized it, to his breast 

Held it to hear his heart beat ; a grey lizard 

Seemed genial to him, and he flung himself 

Flat on his face for its grave company; 

He could have waked the bush-abiding birds, 

And given them news of limitless broad day, 

So they should sing for him and voice his joy. 

By this the moon was gone, and all the vale 
Monotonously dark. Then Herakles, 
Unto the hollow centre of that place, 
Reti-aced his steps. The lighter foliage there 
Left sight of aerial spaces, and the stars, 
And the huge, waiting lion high advanced 
Amid the constellations of the gloom. 
Loud, then, the hero's voice leaped from his throat 
Into the air, defiant. As a flood. 
Long rising, but contained in its bars. 
Cracks its frail dams and barriers at last. 
And bursting, booming, hissing, spreads away, 
So went his summons, echoing to that beast, 
Which stood at pause attentive, answering then 



IG HERAKLES. 

With dreadful iteration, deep increased 

To overbear his voice, who back replied. 

So ia reduplicated dialogue, 

In the vale multiplied, or ringing down 

Hollowly distant from the hanging cliff, 

Lion and man contended, till the stars, 

AV^an ghosts of their own fire, were fugitive. 

In the grey dimness of the day withdrawn. 

Then Herakles, impatient of delay, 

Set his tired limbs to climb, and win a path 

From that abyss. The embedded slopes he left, 

Whose forest sheddings of a century 

Made rotten, slippery footing; and above 

Where tumbled ledges of enormous rock 

Jutted, or overhung, or walled the cliff. 

He sprang, crawled, hung suspended, till he won 

Their shaggy foreheads. Thence above him stretched 

A steep unbroken surface, on whose crest. 

Like curled foam on a billowy concave, 

Shadowed the lion, no more held erect, 

Couched, centred upon Herakles' approach. 

Flat on his face, and winding sinuously. 

By aid of every bunch of grass or bush, 

Slowly the hero made ascent ; his bow 

Trailed after him, till on a level ledge, 

Under the shaggy hill-brow imminent, 



HERAKLES. 17 

He stopped and strung his bow, and chose apart 

Three of his strongest arrows. Then against 

An outward-jutting rock he set his back, 

And to the very centre of his bow 

He drew a shaft. That sideways-swaying beast 

Half rose o'erhead, but the stern arrow, loosed 

With ominous whistle in the cloven air, 

Made stagger all its death-preparing mass. 

That not the less launched airward, downward came 

With long, deliberate curve, and squarely lit 

Upon the slope midway to Herakles : 

Then, as it gathered for another spring. 

The tense bow shrieked again, and in its side 

Bit deep another arrow ; still it rose, 

A sky-obscuring mass to Herakles, 

Who, ere it fell, and death, his last shaft sent 

Crashing into its forehead. At his feet 

It sank, rolled, quivered, and with one great sob. 

Like ocean's tremor when it turns to ebb. 

Let out its life tremendous to the air. 

No touch of triumph to the hero came. 
On its grey, faded eyes, that yet were filled 
With ruined visions, like the twilight west, 
He gazed, and for a moment would recall 
Their savage splendor into throbbing life. 



18 HEBAKLES. 

But all was o'er. And next, he felt desire 
For the swart trophy of its hide, that might 
Deck and distinguish him to future days; 
And down he knelt, and with his flinty knife 
Ripped ope his victim, slowly tearing off 
The shaggy, heavy mantle of its skin. 
Then, as the volleying arrows of the morn, 
O'er aimed, fell o'er the hill-top, touching him 
With spent and lingering fire, he rose and took 
Deep respiration of the ardent air. 
And, staggering, all his statue sank, o'ercome, 
Prone on the earth, in slumber by his prey. 



BOOK II. 

Not from the quarried blocks of heaven's steep, 

Carved rather from the earth, by day disclosed, 

The climbing bulk of giant Herakles 

Started from rude repose, in mien as bright, 

Original in splendor, as the god 

Helios, uppacing from the horizon. 

Who roused him to revealment of himself. 

Loosed from the league of night, his gathered limbs 

Towered o'er ruined rocks and crags dislodged. 

His dream-uneasy couch, but all his might, 

Arrested in one gesture absolute. 

Still slumbered on the air with veins unswelled, 

And smoothed sinews yet unknit for war. 



20 HERAKLES. 

So fixed he stood, \vhile far above him rolled 
Bright Helios, lost in brilliaDce, who, erect 
Behind his eager horses of tlie day, 
Guided his car unshaken, Avhile he poured 
His lightnings on the earth, shaft after shaft. 
Broad barbed arrows filling each a sky. 
Some gilt earth's eminences, and, as high. 
Some fell upon the front of Herakles, 
Whose orbed eyes flashed unto the firmament 
Incensed, until the oft-repeated shafts, 
Hurtless, but heavy in their multitude. 
Thickened about him ; Avhen his voice gave forth 
A cry that echo could not imitate, 
And, starting into life, his mighty limbs 
Stiffened again with effort, as he loosed 
An aiTOw from the circle of his bow, 
Winged for the wide dominion of the air. 

But Helios rose unheeding, for the heat, 
The fervor, and the fury of his power. 
In awful occupation on those heights, 
Made an obscurity beyond himself 
Scai'ce parted by his fiery, plunging shafts, 
Sent in shrill flights, and seconded by cries — 
Tunable echoes of the twanging bow. 
Half had he risen to the zenith, when 



JIERAKLES. 21 

His Avide-built horses, swei'ving in alarm, 

Stopped suddenly, and, naked of all rein, 

Guided by the voicing of the god, 

Rolled backward on the car ; one fell, and dragged 

The other headlong, and hurled Helios down 

Prone on the shaken platform of the wind. 

Together lay they tangled, struggling still 

Into new intricacies, while their light. 

Confused, not eclipsed, was heightened more 

With glowing effort of the heated strife, 

Till the god's fiery heart upheaved his form 

To burn erect, and with him up he drew 

His horses to firm footing. Then he leaped 

Into his shaking car, and raised his eyes. 

And listened for the lagging thunder-sound. 

None came. Then thrice he searched the horizon. 

Thrice measured all the earth, ere that he saw 

The still vibrating bow of Herakles, 

The hero's threatening poise ; then all effaced. 

Himself, his horses, faded from the sky, 

Obliterated brightness born anew. 

More golden in the glittering world below, 

Opposite to gigantic Herakles. 

Like the tense thunder of a planet's tread, 
Audible only to entranced cars 



22 HERAKLES. 

In soundless accent on the silver night, 
His voice found issue from his lips convulsed : 
" O sovran, universal deities, 
Do ye behold my wrongs, do ye see hurled 
Prone on heaven's arch and airy avenue 
Your flaming herald of futurity. 
Your courier conqueror, who ever wakes 
New Avorlds unto your worship, who compels 
The forest altars send their perfumes up, 
Who makes ascend the ocean's sacrifice, 
Mists wreathing to your nostrils, who does gild 
Your palaces Avith wealth of undigged gold. 
Do ye endure to see me injured so? 
See, then, my 2:)ractice of revenge; for O, 
While in my wandering cavern calm I slept. 
And the paved waters drew my car along 
From the west entrance to the eastern gate. 
Night, leaning from his throne, has breathed into 
Some mortal monarch of the hollow earth. 
His tumult and his terror, till the bulk, 
The giant granite grown formidable. 
Stands out to check my coui'se, erected vast. 
But eai'ly leveled to the earth again." 
Rose his Avords, as do eagles, to those heights 
They visit ere they stoop to victory. 
But Herakles, like one, who hears secure 



EERAKLES. 23 

The dreaming thunder on some distant verge, 
Stood undismayed. Stern, then, he answered back : 
"Thou guiding rnonarcli of the gaudy day, 
Back to thy reahii, back to thy zenitli rule, 
Back, nor thine ivory-footed steeds compel 
To pace upon this floor impervious ! 
Back, back, and couch witli thy calmed clouds again 
The creatures thou hast called from out the sea, 
Carved daintily for delicate delights. 
Dyed, and with draperies of the ocean depths. 
With heaving bosom cool yet with the foam 
And fragrant of their fresh eternal caves. 
Go, and thine azure empire rule in peace. 
Thine airy architecture, altering 

With every mood; but leave the earth's vast floor. 
Hewn granite or the dew-enameled turf. 
For the grey footing of the twilight steeds. 
Or the night, best beloved of all bereaved. 
For huge the pain, the labor, the despair 
Here in this earthy harbor ; huge, and not 
To be disclosed unto thy careless glance. 
Back, then, or with earth's ruins find thy rest!" 

As one who drives twelve angry steeds abreast, 

All uncontrollable, yet every one 

Difierently maddened, — some with stiffened feet, 



24 HERAKLES. 

And snuffiug nostrils, aud wild eyes that see 

Viewless impediments in vacancy; 

Some bursting on like nianed thunderbolts, 

Some tangled in the reins, and overthrown, 

And some with vaulting hoofs rearing in air, 

Aud struggling 'gainst their driver aud themselves, 

And occupied with motion, motionless, — 

So now was Helios, In his riven breast 

Rose such disordered powers; but not long; 

Soon in dilated statui-e did his soul 

Tower o'er their passions, tightening, their curbs. 

Training; their tumult to a siufjle end : 

Soon did he wheel his horses and his cai*. 

Smooth running on the surface of the earth. 

Till, some short space from Herakles, he turned 

And came upon the hero like a flood. 

Came like a foaming breaker's hollow height, 

Armed for onset irresistible. 

But safely Herakles withstood the shock. 

Submerged, but not subdued. About him foamed 

The horses ; and the arrows of the god 

Glanced from his bulk. Then to full height he rose. 

And seized the fiery nostrils of each horse. 

And bent their necks; then, as two barrier pines, 

Bowed by a tempest to the earth, released. 



HERAKLES. 25 

Spring backward in their freedom near as far, 
So, loosed, the steeds reared up, and Herakles 
Caught either by the throat, and easily 
O'erthrew them overbalanced ; but the god 
Leaped from the car before it felt the shock, 
And, all unarmed, unarmored, on his foe 
Sprang fiercely ; interlocked, they grew so near 
That neither saw the other, but their eyes 
Looked each in each. But soon great Helios 
Saidc in that struggle; for his golden breast, 
LT&ed but to exercise of echoing song, 
His limbs, unapt to eager rivalry, 
Were crushed and wearied in that great embrace; 
His liice fell forward with its tight-closed teeth, 
And rigid suffering of its . ruled lines. 
And his whole figure sunk in sheer defeat. 
Him Herakles uplifted, raising, too. 
His wrecked car and its ready liorses then, 
And set him in it drooping, urging on 
Those winged steeds to the waste of air again. 

So that disgraced glory slowly went 

Back to his radiant realm; but when he reached 

His airy eminence, he bade his winds 

To convoy all the light-escaping clouds, 

And build them close about him ; then he drew 



26 BERAKLES. 

His lightning-fulgent quiver from his side, 

And emptied all its golden furniture 

Into the sea; at which the delving waves, 

Ancient artificers of airy domes, 

With heaped loads of silver on their backs, 

Rose with their burdens to the vaulted sky, 

And reared an instant palace for the god, 

Its outer surface to the world obscure, 

But inwardly enriched with varying gems. 

Jewels, and precious metals, more inflamed 

By the god's angry hue. Engraved there 

On the carved pillars and the pictured walls. 

Vivid emblazonings of vast designs 

Wandered, and glories by themselves enwrought, 

The elements in action self-confessed. 

So, clouded by the columns, couched soft, 

Gorgeously shadowed by such pictured grace. 

The god reposed ; while to him ministered 

The lucid creatures of the limpid depths, 

Immaculate issue of the virgin waves, 

The ocean-offered tributary train, 

Nymphs, naked as the floods from which they rose, 

The cool touch of whose circling bosoms soothed 

The fevered Helios, till he rose and passed, 

Dejected but magnificent, along, 

Still with that glittering palace o'er his head, 



HEUAKLES. 27 

Still with the cloudy floor beneath his feet, 
Down the long slope and distance of the sky, 
Down to the border of the wave-bound world. 

But Herakles, inspired beyond himself, 

Proud o'er the earth, by winged passion held. 

Exalted to the action of a god. 

Strode here and there disordered, while his heart, 

Turbulent, tameless, not to be controlled, 

Shook all his frame, and riotous desires 

Made dizzy eyes that combat clouded not. 

Unmeasured longings rose within his soul, 

Ambitions to be equalized with Zeus, 

And dreams of unimagined destinies. 

Then, with uncertain footing, did he pass 

Down from that lofty platform to a world 

Surrendered all to shadow, cool and dim, 

And grateful to the giant overworn. 

There flung he down his mighty limbs beneath 

Those earliest births of nature, ages-green 

Presences of a passed antiquity, 

Far-spreading oaks. There flung he down for rest; 

But a shrill summons unto echo came. 

Out of the forest-openiugs, to his car, 

That shook his pulse and reared him to his feet: 

Noises confounded, like the barking winds 



28 HEBAKLES. 

Contending with the ne'er-collected crests 

In clamorous expostulation, 

So came the uproar. Soon upon him broke, 

Like to a forest parting from itself, 

A mighty company of strangest mould, 

Statues and trunks distorted, like tree-trunks 

Tortured by winds ; monstrous they rolled along, 

Hoofed and four-footed, but their threatening fronts 

Advanced in mortal aspect. Glad they seemed. 

Hurling precipitously on, then checked 

To watch the swifter passage of some shaft : 

Garrulous in their games they were, and filled 

Each pause and moment of expectancy 

With cries. But silent grew they when they saw 

Herakles, twice terrific in his fear, 

There burning; warily about they rode. 

And made a circle round him, their huge bulks 

His path barred as their bent bows barred approach. 

Till from their cloudy circle burst a form 

In silver glory and serener state, 

And awed them to inaction. Aged he seemed. 

If immortality could wear decay, 

If grey hues were not some primeval guise. 

Long gazed he on the hero ; last his voice 

Deep-uttered accents loosed unto the air. 



HEBAKLES. 29 

"Surely have I beheld thy form before! 
Some banished brilliance art thou of the sky ? 
Some new star -waiting for a firmament? 
Ah, no, thy mould is mortal, and thy look! 
Yet in thee all the promise of the earth. 
All prophecies and legends, are fulfilled ; 

' Thou art Alkraene's sou. O, I have seen 
Such splendor on thee iu thine infancy ! 
For once I heard the thunder-grating gates 
Of heaven opeu, and an awful shape 
AVith angry gesture from the threshold leap, 
Hurled hissing through the air. Hera it Avas, 
And with her came Hephsestos' masterpiece, 
A meteor-mailed serpent. Down they rushed, 
Thebes vengefully invading, seeking there 
Amphitryon's house; his no more, for the king, 
A self-devoted exile, o'er the world, 
By Zeus dishonored, roamed ; but therein dwelt 
The marble ruin of Alkmene's youth : 
Shrouded and secret there she hid her form. 
Marred to herself, though matchless to all else, 
And still the honor of her outraged blood. 
The dignity of her disparaged flesh. 
Adorned the air; but through her solemn eyes 
Her lofty soul looked on her loathed limbs, 
That had been subject to a god's embrace. 



30 HEBAKLES. 

And longed for death's renewed chastity. 

Beside her on the floor, uucradled, played 

The Zeus-sprung Herakles, whose need of her 

Kept something human in Alkraene's mien. 

Thither came Hera; but herself unseen, 

She sent that serpent in the room. It coiled 

Over the threshold, and, with crest advanced, 

Moved mantling. Then, Alkmene's curdled blood 

Controlled her strength ; but the delighted boy, 

Welcoming the horror as a thing divine, 

Stretched forth his hand to brush the brazen plates 

That in the chamber made such light as lives 

In Autumn-altered forests : but the snake. 

Hissing, npreared to strike, at which there grew 

A gilding splendor on the infant's face. 

And sacred liglitnings played within his eyes; 

Then, with the sudden leap of infancy, 

He sprang npon the serpent, sinking deep 

His puny fingers in its plated neck, 

Spite of its writhing, till its unbreathed force 

Failed it, and all its fiery brilliance. 

And dead it lay, deformed : when, with a shriek, 

Alkmene fell upon the faded bulk. 

And Hera vanished to her vault again. 

Such was the earliest strife of Herakles. 

And now, O Centaurs, do I see again 



HERAKLES. 31 

The goldeu struggle in his greatened limbs, 
The glory of his suu-sufiused eyes, 
His armed ardor. O, thou hero King, 
Be thou the equal of our early births! 
Hill-haunting Centaurs are we, and we come 
From our high-hanging hollows to the vales. 
Joined with Theseus and his train, to grace 
The wedding of Pirithous. Come with us, 
And be our fellow through futurity." 

Curiously closed they, then, i-ound Herakles, 
Riders and men, beneath those lofty bulks. 
Those pillars in their rising wind-dispersed, 
Cloud-bearing oaks. Glad was the company, 
And glorious from the hero's comradeship. 
But Herakles gi'ew silent, and he lost 
His step elate and sovran-seeming eye 
And half his splendor, for upon his mind 
Omens intruded, images obscure 
Of fate. Yet down he followed with the rest. 
When, radiant from that valley did they go. 
And sunk from sight beneath the circling hills, 
As sink the shapes of night preeminent 
Under the horizon to hidden meads. 



BOOK III. 

We are the heralds of antiquity! 

Soon comes the twilight season, when the earth, 

Hoar-mantled, in decaying horizons, 

Rears an unregal front of withered eld, 

Forgetful of the fashion of its prime. 

When, bathed in brilliance, belted by bright stars. 

Amid its fair immensities it ruled, 

Rearing its giant race; or later, when 

Over uuconquered realms it set its kings, 

Its shepherd princes set o'er provinces, 

Not only to keep watch of wandering sheep 

And herded cattle, but to have a care 

Of the sky's variable visionings 



HERAKLES. 33 

And serviceable seasons, and to fold 

The creatures of the day, or let them pass, 

Guarded, to measured pastures of the air. 

Such was Pirithous; so he ruled the rude 
And forest-overflowing Thessaly ; 
Unfathomed in whose leafy fastnesses, 
Amid oak-roofed or granite-arched ravines. 
Abysses, openings oracular, 

Gleams, gathered glories, or tumultuous glooms 
Of suddenly precipitated hills, 
His region was : there were his temples reared. 
Sky-separated columns of smooth mist ; 
Before which, in a simple curule chair, 
Royal, but for its lion retinue, 
Footstools asleep, and sentinels when roused, 
Pirithous sat. Soon, through the golden air, 
A forest-occupying clamor came, 
And far-sent shadows floated at his feet. 
Whereat he rose, and shouted up the slope: 
'Welcome, ye ancient riders of the hills, 
Turbulent tamers of the herded winds, 
Whose realms have ending on the rainbow's slope. 
Who gather hardy harvests, and who taste 
Springs yet untainted by the touch of man; 
And welcome, thou heroic-fashioned frame, 



34 HEBAKLES. 

Athenian Theseus ; welcome, too, 
Thou background-filling bulk of Herakles. 
Richer in royalty shall be our feast 
Than Zeus' full-seated synod of the gods." 

They entered ; and those mountains, huge before, 

The halfway-hanging giants to the sky, 

Diminished as if distance had removed 

Or force demolished them, so shrank they at 

The living action of that large array. . 

Keiron came first. His smooth-enameled bulk, 

With such interior touches, seemed alive 

Of sinews in continual change, as play 

Upon the surface of a sunned stone 

Shrouded by wind-entangled foliage. 

Blithely he trod the grasses, blithely raised 

His moulded front of immortality. 

And with wide-winged words, that did collect 

The earth's eternal echoes to one voice, 

He spake : " O, happy king of hollow realms, 

Secure- amid selected horizons, 

Peace lies upon these slopes, peace on far peaks, 

Tranquillity upon the train of heaven ; 

Breathless with expectation beyond bliss, 

Earth, all attentive to thy triumph feast. 

Awaits thy marriage consummation." 



HERAKLES. 35 

He ceased, and round Pirithous crowded, then, 

Theseus and the rest; but Herakles 

Sat silent on a squared block of stone, 

And bent ujwn his bow and touched its string, 

That made soft music to his single ear. 

Suddenly separate Pirithous stood, 
And lifted up his hand; at which there rose 
A matchless strain of married melodies, 
Rival accord of lutes and breathed reeds. 
Then, from the pillared intervals beyond. 
Carved figures came, by harmony betrayed 
To life, and wonderful in white array. 
The marble melted, but immortal yet; 
And as the year first loosens from its lap 
Those infant heralds of its pageantry. 
Faint-budded bushes and few-flowered weeds, 
Half-naked, in the newness of their youth. 
With touches of April's appareling 
So tender children, treading the waved grass, 
Where the lithe lizards moved in linked accord, 
Came first; and dancing after thorn, all wild 
And slender figures of alarmed light, 
Nymphs, riotous, though unripe; them following, 
Actionless in activity complete, 
Maturer matrons, in crowned quietude, 



36 HEBAKLES. 

Like caryatides, or columnar shapes, 

Stepping but now from pedestal or plinth, 

Descended from tbe portals of the house; 

Last, when these partial glories had prepared 

All eyes for the full presence yet withlield, 

Into that cirque of heroes, and the herd 

Of Lapithse, strong-limbed, like shepherd gods, 

Came Hippodaniia, creation's child, 

A sanctity inviolate, and veiled, 

Secure for one man's secret happiness. 

Bold nor abashed, with steady feet she stej^ped, 

Unconscious of the countenances round, 

Pirilhous' image painting all the vale. 

Till paused she where he stood; who, stooping down 

With orbed inclination to her, took 

Her, still entreating girl timidity. 

Into his arms; at which there rose a shout, 

Whose echo died not on the mountain shoals. 

But swelled on to the gods, to whom it brought 

Vague longings and unfathomable hopes 

And ministry of unaccustomed tears. 

Rose the applause and sank, for as the soul. 
Soon satiate of high achievements, falls 
To doubting what it now adored, tlie crowd, 
Still malcontent at majesty, did buzz, 



HERAKLES. 37 

Half-tantalized at that transpoi'ted pair, 

Aud broke in groups about the dew-bent sward, 

Bestowed to such employment as they liked. 

To test of weapon or of instrument, 

Or eager exercise in unknown arms; 

Till rose the voice of Phorbas : " O, ye guests. 

Heroes, and neighbor rivals of the clouds, 

Behold a treasure for your tongues to test : 

Wine in a cask, and cool yet with the shade 

Of Diouysus, for himself it was 

Gave it, here passing radiant on his path, 

A rosy meteor fostering its track. 

Come, let us broach it. Ugh ! how sweet it smells, 

Unopened, yet with odors overbrimmed, 

Escaping essences ethereal !" 

"Well pleased, they crowded round him, footmen then 

Mingled with ramping Centaurs, aud slight maids 

In curiosity together crushed 

In circle round the cask ; which they had broke. 

But that the hollow voice of Keiron held 

Their hands a space. " 0, host and shepherd hordes. 

Broach not the vessel in this little vale. 

This close confinement where we push and crowd. 

Compelled to force, in spite of courtesy. 

But on the breezy uplands let it flow, 



38 HEBAKLES. 

"Where winds shall blow us wide and give vast room 

For aweless act and gesture amplified." 

Loath hung they, then, in doubt; but up arose 

Great Herakles, like some inflamed star 

That lags upon the lonely horizon, 

And thrust into the middle of the throng, 

That at his moody visage backward moved, 

Till grasped he the god's gift, and loosed the wine 

That, colorless with hues collected, flowed 

With unbreathed odors of ethereal fields, 

Celestial soothing unto mortal sense. 

At which the crowd appi'oached. The Centaurs, then, 

With twitching nostrils and with pawing hoofs. 

Nearest with hollowed hands the liquor took; 

Then, bounding ofif with streaked faces, rolled 

Over in ecstasy upon the sward. 

Gamboling on the flowers odorous. 

But one more riotous, Eurytion, 

Roused such a tumult that it reached the king, 

Pirithous, solitary with his bride 

In constellated quiet far apart, 

Who stooped to quell the turbulence below. 

But the mad Centaur, mutinous with wine, 

Eurytion, with Avheeling hoofs in air, 

Evaded him, and swerving sideways, saw 

The eager Hippodamia in suspense. 



HERAKLES. 39 

Tiptoe abovG the tumult, like a shape 
Descended but more used to meads divine. 
And by the vision twice intoxicate, 
There sprang he at a single bound, and seized 
The luckless queen, and tore her vest and loosed 
The guarded treasure of her bosom's gold. 
No more ; for then his forehead felt the force 
Of Keiron's fist; he fell, and yielded up 
His captive to the Centaur king, the which 
Incensed Pirithous saw mistakenly. 
And awful in his anger I'eared his sword 
Against the breast of Keiron ; but thereat 
Each sodden Centaur, as if signaled, seized 
Out of the crowd some fair selected prey, 
Some naked maid, or matron thinly veiled. 
And sought to bear her off; at which, aroused, 
Alarmed at first, then angered, round them closed 
Those brawny forest hunters, with fierce cries ; 
Looks not uncertain nor unused to war. 

Then, as the wind-waked billows of the sea 

Heave from huge depths their bulks, and front to front 

Contend for the possession of the foam, 

So clashed these heroes ; so their equal bulks, 

Smooth or deep carved with sinewy designs, 

Grew to each other; while above them seemed 



40 SERAKLES. 

Their floatiug captives flying half iu air; 

And so collected, by themselves encaged, 

With intertwining trunks, with breasts embraced, 

Their straining sinews but suspended strife; 

Sideways they could not stir, nor straight, but some 

Fought in the middle air upheld from earth ; 

Here ramped a Centaur, whose unbalanced bulk 

His wrestling opponent could not o'erthrow ; 

And there another, overlooking, drew 

Unto the barb a shaft his foeman held ; 

Here stood a mortal with a stone uphurled, 

Gigantic for the gateway of a king, 

But could not cast it for his arms compressed; 

So the Avhole agony, embraced stood 

Stiffened into inaction, silent from 

Exhausting effort of the unstirred war. 

Trunks, limbs, hoofs, intermingled seemed to be 

Like growths of forest saplings, when the air 

Dies, and they lean in one another's arms 

With dusk and doubtful openings beneath. 

Then, from the centre of that carved ring, 

Keirou caught Triopas, hurled him far 

Beyond the battle; tore two others down, 

And made a little footing for the war; 

Wherein some fell, some rolled, some rose again, 

Renewing battle in another mood, 



HERAKLES. 41 

With loosened shafts, swords swung, and heaved stones, 

With talon-teariug hands and muscles swollen 

In evident employment, till all was 

Con)bat and clamor and confusion. 

Ill was it then to Keiron and his brood, 

That they, cliff-wandering shadows of the sky, 

Always aloof and inaccessible, 

Ringed round with bowmen, stood now in that vale. 

So felt the Centaur chieftain, Avhile his eyes. 

In moment pause of occupation, then 

Ranged o'er his cirque of riders; so he felt 

No hope, no hesitation, till he saw 

The broadening bulk of Herakles, beyond 

That tumult theatre of tragic act; 

And loud he shouted: "Aid, O hero, aid! 

Theseus fights against us. Do thou rise 

In might unmatched, save when the deity, 

Sole Zeus, his angry thunder does exalt, 

And awe down this annoy ! for thou, like us, 

Art a creation of incarnate earth ; 

Like us, all unaffrighted, hast thou heard 

The breathing of earth-buried melodies. 

And issued oracles ^ from opened rocks!" 

Gloomy, the hero gazed not back on him, 

Irresolute for action or delay. 

Doubtful of aid to either combatant, 



42 HEBAKLES. 

These hospitality, those friendship called. 

At last, he strung his bow and stepped adown. 

In dreadful and deliberate descent. 

Unto the strife, that ceased at his approach ; 

As when two warring serpents do unknit, 

Both shrinking powerless, both paralyzed. 

When some wiuged, potent victor of the air 

Hangs doubtful of which well-assured prey. 

So stooped he, so they shrank ; meanwhile, the dim 

Twilight and dusk, together rushing, came 

With cool and dewy footing o'er the sward. 

But when the god of day heard of the strife, 

Helios, now pacing to the horizon, 

He turned his smoking horses, turned his car 

Upon its track, and to the zenith came, 

Retarded revolution rolling back. 

Renewed in beauty, rose he on that vale 

And gilt the strife with momentary gold ; 

But most he bent his bright, enameled face 

On Herakles, who shone immortal, then. 

In solitary splendor ; but, alas ! 

Blinded with brilliancy, saw not ; only heard 

The shrill, despairing Centaur-riven cry? 

The voice of Keiron chiding ; maddened, then, 

A massy shaft he fitted to his bovv, 



HERAKLES. 43 

And foaraing-raouthed, with tumult-trebled force, 

Ferociously he loosed it, with the shrill, 

Prophetic echo of the shrieking string. 

Instant it sprang in the confusion 

And struck the throat of Pyllos, widest built 

Of all the Centaurs, who fell down and dragged 

Phorbas, that mortal monarch, crushed beneath. 

Then did the cries of friends and enemies 

Conflict in consternation, but thereat, 

The more resistlessly enraged to vent 

His angry anguish on opposed bulks. 

In station undisturbed, in soul distressed, 

The hero stood, and sent his heavy bolts. 

Reiterated misdirections. 

Messages of death mistaken, that were still 

Guided infallibly from foes, to fall 

Swift on his friends. Arrow on arrow, aimed 

Astray, slept with some Centaur on the sod. 

Shaft after shaft found quarry in the breasts 

Of comrade heroes ; but determined still, 

Dilated beyond earth's dimensions 

Stood he, though vexed. His bright, uplifted face 

Flamed o'er the fire of battle, and his limbs 

Shook off the touch of trespassing attacks. 

Still rolling back the strife that still arose. 

Ever to new assailment. Sole he trrew 



44 HERAKLES. 

Centre of unsolicitated war, 

Faithless to some and foeman to the rest, 

Sending reiterated shafts to all, 

Thicker than volleys that the moon hurls on 

The meagre-raargin monsters of the night, 

In occupance of earth's hoar fastnesses; 

Deadlier than death-dealing thunderbolts. 

Firmament-flashes that do leap through air, 

Extinct in momentary action. 

Recorded only by the prostrate pines; 

More certain than those feathered strengths that stoop 

From their high eyries on the hanging cliff*. 

Visibly wheeling in the air, till down 

They fall, unfollowed by the eye, unto 

The ocean level and their scaly prey : 

So went his arrows, crushing through the throats, 

Breasts, bulks of Centaurs, till around they lay, 

Not agonized, but altered to become 

Companions of the earth-encased rocks, 

Equaled with them in clayey quietude. 

But differing aspects also had the field. 
And other figures, awfully convulsed, 
In all the wild abandonment of death. 
Few forms erect arose. The shepherd prince, 
With the surviving victors of his train, 



HERAKLES. 45 

Roamed unarrested yet over the field, 

Like the spent billows of the passed storm 

Heaved powerlessly up. Pirithous, then, 

Affrighted more at victory than defeat, 

Led thence the remnant of his race, and left 

The giant bulk of armed Herakles 

To glow, to fade, to fail, to glow again, 

And fill with alternation all that vale 

Whence he had driven all delight, and where, 

Still blinded by the fiery-wheeling god, 

Still did he send his arrows up the slopes, 

Still in continual constellations, 

Aimlessly wandered from the twanging bow, 

Sole sounding 'ueath that silence-vaulted sky. 



BOOK IV. 

Immortal deeds of heroes to record 
Move verse, with martial and majestic tread, 
And even accenting; but O, cease, then, 
Stilled at the very threshold of despair ; 
Or, if attempting such eternrtl theme, 
Sob with the syllables, in sighs dissolved, 
At visions of all grey and antique griefs; 
Then, sobered, solemnly proceed to tell 
How stood the hero — how stood Herakles, 
While yet his laboring arrows climbed the sky, 
While yet bright Helios hovered o'er his head. 
How, when the god fell sudden from his height, 
With foaming horses racing to regain 



HEEAKLES, 47 

The gated horizou ere day should close, 

Unbliuded Herakles awoke, and saw 

The fixed dream of that o'erfigured field, 

Radiaut in dusk, iu darkness all revealed ; 

Aud saw the sleeping Centaurs — saw them laid. 

Of life deserted, but discu'dered not. 

Pale rulers of perpetual horizons ; 

Then his great heart, bursting its confines, set 

A-tremble that composed atmosphere 

With words reverberate. " 0, hollow earth, 

Home once of heroes, home, alas ! no more ; 

Deserted dost thou roll, a silent disc 

Beneath the sky ; the mighty race that brought 

The universal tumult of thy heart, 

In i^ipings palpable to outer air. 

Is gone ; the solemn company is gone ; 

Mute are the golden tongues; the golden forms 

Move not in glory o'er the gladdened hills ; 

Stilled is the upi'oar ; stilled the harmony 

That held the captive gods entranced to hear; 

Silence is absolute, but, O dread earth. 

Seek some relief in ruin ; let thy rim 

Of overhanging mountains overwhelm 

Me, and these silent riders, and thyself." 

He ceased, but near him from the sward there came. 



48 HEBAKLES. 

Through tangled intricacies of the dead, 

A secret echo sighing to his ear 

In sentenced separation : " Herakles, 

Not thou, but the gods willed it, and the stars 

Malign in ministration to the earth, 

Who, envying the free fashion of our lives, 

Fixed to no course yet in condition sure, 

Eecurring not to hoar decrepitudes. 

As do the sky's creations, struck through thee. 

Leveling our ancient race. I only am 

Eternal as the essences above, 

I, Keiron of ethereal element; 

Yet, unaccompanied, care I not to bear 

Maimed innuortality to future years: 

Rather will I resign it, and become 

Only eternized earth. But, O, not here — 

Not in this narrow confine, choked with dead, 

But on the windy platforms of my rock, 

Where Pelion looks on Ossa and the world : 

There let my nostrils breathe fi-esh air and death." 

Faltered his voice and sank. But Herakles 
Gazed round him on the wreck and wretchedness. 
Like one who treads some temple of old time. 
Mid a confusion of carved shapes o'erthrowu. 
And crumbled statues that but now were gods; 



HEBAKLES. 49 

Then, stooping down unto the dead, he took 
The topmost figures from that tragic pile, 
Struck through the gaudy armor of their youth, 
lu manhood mutilated, laid them by. 
And dug yet deeper in that mortal mould. 
Until he felt the quivering hoof and limbs 
Of Keiron, saw his mild, majestic face, 
And lifted him into the air again 
To view that field's hoar harvest, and his kings 
Contented in the twilight as they slept. 
But Keiron closed his eyes. Then Herakles 
Braced 'gainst a rock his body like a rock. 
And lifted the huge Centaur to his back. 
The two together showing monster-like. 
Shadowing enormous on the shifting sward ; 
Then the precipitous and slant ascents 
Essayed he of those hills environing 
With iron rush, and where he set his feet 
The sinewy oaks bent back to give him room. 
And up he rose, o'er rough or shaven slopes, 
Where every step was greeted by a star 
And new-discovered stretches of the sky. 
Where tlie dusk forests, by him hurling past. 
Chased one another down the steep descents 
Till, in confusion, in the depths they fell. 
Last, clearly, on the hill-top he stood out 



50 HEEAKLES. 

Against the moon, great on the horizon, 

And o'er the wandering ridges of the hills, 

Moved toward Pelion ; till the mount itself 

Rose naked in his path. Then, with the aid 

Of carved cliff-passages and ledged rocks. 

Gradually gained he to the cloud-hung verge, 

The cave of Keiron, opening to the sky ; 

And there his mighty burden laid he down. 

But Keiron, when he felt that rock again, 

Rose renovated. By his cave he stood. 

The carved issue of the cloven mount. 

Sadness, irradiate, stole all around, 

But touched him not ; solemn he seemed, not sad, 

With melancholy all allied to strength ; 

Awfully came his words in even strain, 

Unused accents of earth's infancy, 

Through which primeval passion breathing, poured 

Proud echoes o'er the empty earth supreme. 

Thus came his words: " O, thou heaved realm of stone, 

Mountained intruder on the infinite ! 

Changed art thou since the morning when I came 

Out of thine entrail rock. Then, did'st thou shake 

Under the footing of tremendous foes, 

Giants and gods. Night had resigned unto 

Unmoved thunder its eternal throne ; 



HERAKLES. 51 

Confounded iu their own creation then, 

None saw the giants, no one saw the gods. 

Clouded they fought ; but soon below I saw 

The league-drowned statues and hill-buried bulks 

Of Titans swell the earth. AH, all w^ere gone, 

The giant rulers of immensity ; 

Cybele's towered and tremendous look 

Could awe no longer the moon-driven hounds 

Off from the earth ; or Krius, forest-clothed, 

Stretched at his shaggy length at ease, could lie 

Secret and insolent unto the stars; 

No Oceanos laugh upon his W'aves : 

Through their great throats no longer could the earth 

Thrust its dread thunder's deej)-toned harmony ; 

Yet must it speak, and therefore did it find 

New music fitted to another mouth. 

And through juy instant-moulded lips, it poured 

Tempest-like agitations and shrill souud. 

Dirge for its dead, and for itself despaix*. 

Thus, in the terror of a time disturbed, 

An utterance embodied I arose. 

To native melancholy so attuned. 

And ever have I been from that my birth, 

A pipe for all the passions of the earth ; 

Sovran with thundei-, shrill with its high winds. 

Sweet with the passing pastoral of brooks, 



o2 HERAKLES. 

Sad with the echo of the sea through all. 

lu mortal accents have I told aloud 

All secrets of reiterated sound ; 

And bent to language what before was life. 

Nor I alone ; for in that early prime, 

The echoes of my voice seemed to become 

Images of empire, rising from the earth ; 

And in cliff-caverns and wood-coverts drear, 

Those inner sentinels of sleeping worlds, 

Enormous shapes of nature-kneaded stone, 

Woke, rose, broke from their graves and thronged to me : 

Boisterous with novel life, disclosed they stood, 

Vast on the mighty summits of the earth. 

With all creation's clamor in their throats. 

O, Herakles, what joyous life ensued ! 

Days busy, and long, affable discourse 

Beneath the bright demeanor of the stars. 

At first, the tumult of discovery 

Urged us to action and to exercise 

Unintermitted : and in troops we wheeled, 

Scudding these cliffs like cirri of the storm, 

Or made incursion on the plains below ; 

And into every unexplored recess, 

Each monster-breeding and abysmal den, 

Clanging we went with clash of arms, the light 

Of calm, amused courage in our eyes, 



HERAKLES. J 

And circled the fen-breathiug dragon shapes, 

And singly slew them ; or, from fertile fields 

Chased ocean's brood abortive. O the joy, 

When back returning from such battle huge, 

High festival in forest dim retired 

We held ; and in the spaces of the oaks. 

And kingly keeping chestnuts separate, 

On the uneven surfaces about. 

Of rocky platforms or grass terraces, 

With levels of enameled sward between, 

We chased, danced, wrestled in mad rioting; 

Till overtired, under the trees we fell. 

Or built fires and partook for appetite, 

The abundance of the earth and of the sea. 

Brought by our hunters there. Great-snouted boars, 

Savagely won with ransom of deep wounds, 

Waited the fire, and yellow-antlered deer. 

Were heaped in soft piles : bxiskets of fish, 

Gold-salmon, or the silver-leaping trout. 

Or speckled sea-fish, dully-clouded through. 

Were ready for repast ; parched corn and dulse. 

Grapes ruddy gleaming and in bulging skins. 

Redolent juices. Then, our feasting done, 

Pentheus, or another, to his pipes 

Would frame the legend of the passed day. 

Breathing glad homage in the happy ears 



54 HEB AXLES. 

Of younger Centaurs ; then, when in the sky 

The earliest watches of the stars were set, 

Bedded in mossy hollows, soft we slept. 

Peacefully each one pillowed on the swai'd. 

But yet intenser joys were ours, and. forth, 

In amorous adventure, each alone. 

Into the valleys went Ave, and surprised 

Some nymph of brook or waterfall, yet wet 

With lucid flood of hair, and bosom cold ; 

Or wooed with gifts some Dryad from her oak. 

Blushing to life out of the Autumn red ; 

Or, better-fortuned yet, upon these cliffs 

Stood waiting, till the maidens of the air 

Came trooping, came consorted, came as clouds, 

And still would climb, and still would 'scape those hills. 

Yet still reclined upon relenting winds 

And waited our embraces. Herakles, 

Action and ease and love were ours : and more, 

Our spirits, with intelligence indued, 

"Wrested from life a wisdom sweeter far. 

Then did the air's wide compass legended. 

Throb all its causes, portents, and designs 

Into our brains ; Avith eloquence instinct, 

Earth was all revelation to our souls; 

We knew the stars, their influence, aiding or 

Retarding the moon's fluid retinue ; 



HERAKLES. 55 

We knew the properties of earthly things, 

The medicines, or njiuisters of death ; 

And deep in sympathy, could have foretold 

The resurrected courses of the year, 

Even to the life of the remotest bud, 

Or tenure of some tributary cloud ; 

From the first poignant passion of the Spring, 

Through Summer's full processional passioning 

To Autunm's slow and brave retreat behind 

Leafy fidelity of its oak shields. 

O, hero, there is the soul's wide domain. 

Not to rule near inclosing horizons, 

But in unvexed and unrestricted state 

To entertain all images of life 

More numerous than a monarch's servitors. 

But my serene possessions I renounce, 

Now, now! and to the oft-renourished earth 

Follow I, where the Titans, Centaurs, lead. 

But from the dark procession of our graves 

A prophecy conies to me. Golden youth 

Touched gloriously with some far-ofi* doom, 

Thou, thou art lineal to our energies, 

And in thy statue earth is humanized ! 

Be thine to be a vision of sole strength, 

A simple virtue of sufficiency. 

Mid the mad, mist-abused, and star-misled 



56 HERAKLES. 

Changes and doubts aud dreamiugs of the world." 

He euded. Rather say his lips, that traced 

Without reverberation such last words, 

Motionless grew, and his eyes filmed in death. 

Then Herakles, with reverent aspect, rose 

To do some last observance for the dead ; 

But ere his touch could smooth the matted hair, 

Or straighten the still-twitching Centaur's limbs, 

A terror and amazement fixed him there. 

For the transparent compass of the sky. 

Benign in its bereavement, seemed condensed 

Into a certain, but gigantic shape, 

Belted with livid stars, and throbbing through 

With aiiy alteration palpable. 

Who on that summit settled, summoning 

Another figure, rugged aud unhewn, 

Issuing from the rock un malleable, 

Whose massy statue, in disordered grief. 

Loomed oraiuous on the air ; then to those two 

A climbing shape arose, with lucid eyes. 

And fluent smoothness of wave-freshened limbs, 

And deejDest smile, mysteriously approved ; 

With whom a fulmining fourth figure came. 

Blazon of gold and lightning, glowing more 

For threatening agitations of despair, 



HERAKLES. 57 

In look and act depicted. These vast shapes, 

In solemn state, the bulk of Keiron bore, 

With pom]) funereal and the fluted dirge 

Of winds in forest branches, and the far, 

Incessant echo of the ocean 

Slow o'er those summits. None might trace their path, 

Erased like the furrows of the sea, 

But hei-e a sj^lendor gleamed, and here a voice 

Marvelously made sorrow to delight. 

And here a fragrance rose, a§ of rich blooms 

In lovely generation hidden long, 

Till last the vision faded, and the stars 

To wonted and majestic view returned. 

Entianced by terror to a thing of stone. 
Then stood great Herakles ; his muscles showed 
Like frozen serpents in their winter sleep; 
Starting, he stirred not. Near him was a pass 
That faced the porch ethereal of the east, 
Set there to intercept the tripping Hours. 
Insensibly he waited. First there came 
A chill enchantress, naked but demure, 
AVhose virginal, cold fingers counted o'er 
The dewy crystals of a ceaseless chain ; 
Her following, a radiant vision rose, 
With flowers for the cloud-wreaths, flowers for 



58 HERAKLES. 

The overhanging crests of the hoar sea; 

Swift in succession, then, a creature came, 

Dusky with swaying shadows, spangled o'er 

With prodigality of virgin gold ; 

With listless step and light inspired air. 

Breathlessly beautiful, the next passed on; 

Hurrying, then, a larger shape arose. 

Luxuriantly ample to infold 

Earth in embraces and in easeful bliss; 

Then, sleeping, blown by music, brought by clouds 

Recumbent, came another royal form. 

Whose hand trailed idly on the hoary earth; 

Half restless, as in trance, the next one roamed; 

By sleep abandoned, yet by dreams abused, 

A silver form shot through and veined by fire; 

■Following then, with fixed and fervent gaze, 

Came an unveiled creation, palpable, 

Even to its palpitating heart; and then, 

In effortless contentment affable, 

Resistlessly, a laughing creature came, 

Chased by another, fairer; so the day 

Seemed fresher as it faded. Then there rose 

Airs culminating vision in decay. 

With pageantry of passion wandering o'er 

Her slender limbs and hollow bosom, heaped 

With unsubstantial ingots of bright gold : 



HEBAKLES. 59 

Last, dim arising, with delicious smile, 

Deep hiddea in the dusky atmospliere, 

A vision came; her touch was ou the brow, 

Her arms about the bulk of Herakles; 

She came, she fled; but up he rose, released, 

Restored to streugtheued glory. In his limbs, 

Some aerial-infused element 

Denied descent; uplifted seemed he, reared 

In readiness for most resolved flight 

Up to the stars: but still his awful eyes 

Rolled melancholy from those sphered orbs, • 

Visitiug most the earth that seemed so fair. 

Beneath his distance-built dominion, 

Distinct in outline, but confused in mass; 

Then, all his splendor sobered and subdued, 

Down stooped he to its floor with soft descent. 

And silver footing on the steps of air, 

Sole ruler of earth's savatre ree-ious. 



BOOK V. 

Thou dream-enamored shepherd of thin flocks, 

Emptily pacing through antiquity, 

Wandering with winged contemplation 

Under air's myriad contented eyes; 

Hast thou beheld two statues issuing 

From out the low-hung horizontal gates? 

Say, hast thou heard the iron monotony 

Of Herakles' great voice ; and hast thou heard 

The subtler accen tings of Tphitus, 

Who echoes every sound of music, from 

The forest fluting through its pipes of bronze, 

Up to the full-orbed utterance of the night? 

Say, thou thin, floating figure of old fields, 



HEBAKLES. 61 

Golden on thy dim jmth have they arisen, 

Searching the air and seeking to discern. 

With shaded eyes, invisibility? 

Hast thou not seen them, or hast thou not heard 

The issue of the strife for lole? 

Know that Eurytus' sons, in archery. 

Strove with great Herakles, and sent their shafts 

With mighty labor of oppressed breasts 

Fierly on; but he, with sinews loose. 

And breathing like an infant in his sleep, 

His arrows farther, faster, fiercer sent. 

Such easiness in such accomplishment 

Angered them, and they did deny the girl: 

Save Iphitus, whose glad observant eyes 

Moved like two planets round their parent orb, 

As moved the hero: but for punishment, 

The oxen of the promise-breaking king, 

With footless passage from their pastures chill, 

Vanished. Then, after them, Eurytus drove 

Herakles, who, with angry tumult, went 

Out of those courts. With him went Iphitus, 

Blithe, eloquent, along the echoing earth. 

Within the sunk embrasure of two hills, 

Suddenly opening on the dying sun. 

They rested: and, upon that slant approach. 



62 HERAKLES. 

And avenue of daylight, the gold air, 

The many facets of the flashing clouds, 

The fiery orb itself, seemed to descend 

In sanguine shadow on rock, herb, and tree; 

But most on Herakles. Three circling days 

Of still-frustrated search and angry thought 

Had added to the fever in his veins, 

Till, heated of itself, his face, too, took 

The shifting revelation of the west. 

And to his eyes the clamoring destinies 

Climbed with their shaken torches, and the stir 

Of tumult-tressed heads. Couched there, he felt, 

In wild disorder thronging to his brain. 

Come images and purposes of death. 

Ghosts hideous of unreal crimes, that changed 

Easily into act, like the chilled wave 

Or the dispersed moisture in the air. 

That but a touch needs to condense to ice. 

Such touch, alas! they had, for Iphitus, 

Lithe-lingering in the grasses at his feet, 

Sang still to ease the hero, home events 

Recording in his boyish innocence. 

With sometime-notes flung from his lyre, that clanged 

Over his running melody of words 

Like solitary eagles, sweeping through 

The pale, continual clouds, or, like high stars. 



HERAKLES. 63 

Hoar coloniziug ether's dim colures. 

Fresh was his soug, uot fervent; still he sang 

The impulses and interests of youth, 

Pastimes and pastoral occupations; 

He imaged the quoit-pitchers at their play, 

The moment-breathless balance when they throw ; 

He pictured the lithe runners, and those groups 

In sunny spaces of the afternoon 

O'erfiguring the air with violence, 

Who, when the games are done, and when the day, 

Home garlanded return, and great of heart. 

Simply he then recounted his own tasks. 

Told of untamed horses he had driven 

In triumph, how far watches he had kept 

At night o'er sheep, whom often he disposed 

In constellated order, distanced so 

The rival the flocks of the firmament; 

How down he di'ove them to the ocean's marge, 

To browse before the woolly-foamed herds. 

Their glassy kindred ; higher, then, he sang 

Of wars and men heroic, and the last 

Combat and victory in his father's house ; 

And told how, ere the struggle, unobserved, 

.Young loie, with furious-beating breast, 

Winged witli a kiss each shaft of Herakles. 

That name roused Herakles ; ei'ect he stood. 



64 HEBAKLES. 

Tense, terrible, with knotted limbs and breast 

Quivering with strength ; and as the reeking west 

Its oozing doors flung open, and disclosed 

The bloodied vision of a hundi-ed thrones, 

The glittering statue of that boy he caught, 

And, while the golden murmur of his song 

Still rippled in his throat, tore him peaceraeal. 

And all that sacrificial threshold strewed 

With bloody offering. But daylight now 

Passed out, and faded all those rosy slopes 

And every highest zenith-floating cloud ; 

Grey hues spread over all, and flights of birds, 

In ominous issue from the horizon, 

Rose wheeling up. The glory faded, too, 

From out the face and front of Herakles. 

His hands alone their stained color kept, 

Held up in apparition to his eyes. 

Horror-controlled, a space he stood, and then 

To the far-folding forests, shrieking, fled. 

O subtle witch, eternal courtesan, 

Sweet satisfying death, thy dusky face, 

With drowned riches in its deep remove. 

Fades Cleopatra, Helen, or the rest 

Of all men's momentary brides. Thy chill 

And cellared chambering may fright the soul; 



HERAKLES. 65 

But who treads out life's torch, for his reward 

Takes thee all naked and all j^assionate ! 

O undivorced, last bedfellow of man, 

Is thy kiss as the promise of thine eyes 

Potent and fatal, thine embrace so full 

Of fervent passion and fulfilled desire, 

That none may need to dream, and none need wake. 

Kissed ever by thy cool, delirious mouth, 

And held forever in thy straining arms? 

Yet not all equal are we to thy love ; 

Thou hast thy favorites. Some thou mak'st to woo 

Age-long for favor of thy finger-tips, 

While often on the daring eyes of youth 

Thou set'st thy lips and lead'st him to thy bed ! 

But who, like Herakles, has wooed thy love. 

When fled that tragic altar of the sun. 

He sank m the deep woods? All night they shook, 

As though with tided tumult set aflow. 

Roofed in black night and shade impenetrable, 

No eyQ in them might make discovery 

Of sleep's molesting outlaw, but aloud 

The minute crash of trees, shook to their fall. 

The headlong rocks in echoing ravines. 

Gave note of dread achievements : and the air, 

Thickened with flitting shapes of frighted birds, 

Grew ominous of some doom. Doom, too, there came 



66 HERAKLES. 

For all those forests in prodigious mass, 
Dim outlined by their slope-dividing height 
Thin foliaged, as the ocean billows are 
Boundaried by edges of the yellow foam, 
Sucldenly started to portentous life. 
Down to its root each tree-trunk showed complete: 
In fiery isolation every bush 
Blazed on the air, and the indented plain 
Laid ope its deepest issues to the light. 
Hissing and crackling and down-crashing there, 
The burning woods lit, as a theatre, 
A rocky platform jutting o'er a stream, 
Whereon rose Herakles. But O, how changed! 
Imbruted with remorse, his mighty limbs 
Trailed beast-like, and his golden aspect, grown 
Formidably fierce with self-inflicted wounds, 
And branded scars, showed dread ; and his hoar face, 
The centred force of that tumultuous flame. 
Laughed triumph to the leaping miner. 
Nothing could move him thence ; he wooed the blaze 
As in mistake of his own element. 
Trunks, fiery to the core, enveloped him ; 
.He would not stir. Then, from the heat intense, 
•Voluminously involving of itself, 
A serpent to that scorching stage of rock 
Clomb, and about unconscious Herakles 



HERAKLES. 67 

Coiled calmly, till its undulating eyes, 

His owu confronting, waked him. Instantly, 

His murderous fingers sank into its neck : 

But something human moved him in its gaze ; 

And spite its fangs were set into his arm. 

He loosed his grasp, and let it from his limhs 

Unlink its plated, bright appareling, 

And glide away. Then, on his heart at once 

Fell deep revulsion of his hideous dream. 

And from the rolling flames he turned his face, 

And plunged in the light-flickering stream below. 

Midway the giant earth there was a vale. 

Rough-hollowed from the rock, but wrought within 

For richest ease: though, not as afterward, 

Decked with the domination of rich domes, 

Processional pillars, veiling the display 

Of courts and distances interior. 

And so, with gifts of all earth's suppliants, 

Made equal to the presence of the god, 

Phoebus, who, there his shrine oracular, 

For prophesy, for purification, kept ; 

But even now fit home for holy rites. 

The babbling issue of warm-breathing springs. 

Kept ever green the even-tempered trees, 

That no decay might build upon their boughs 



68 BERAKLES. 

A fever-colored sanguine dream of death. 

Beneath, the oozy-rooted lilies left 

No interstice of grass or rock untouched 

By pure lustration. Inward to a cave 

A dark stream went, and ever with it drew 

Companies of ceaseless clouds and stars and suns, 

So in the bosom of the earth absorbed. 

As bees, by oft-retraced flights, betray 

The secret-hoarded treasure of their hives. 

So filleted virgins in that sunk retire, 

With circling journeys centred to one spot, 

Revealed the hid creation of the vale. 

Priestesses of Phoebus were they, and they watched 

His temple, half-way cloven from the rock, 

And curtained by rough pillars from the day ; 

Wherein the statue of the god arose. 

Carved from a single block of porphyry, 

With sombre-shining jewels for its eyes ; 

To whose divine demeanor of smooth limbs, 

And carved features gloriously entranced. 

The broken lights and shadows of the place 

Lent an arrested action eminent. 

There seemed more passion iu its poise superb. 

More capability of mighty deeds. 

Than throbbed in all its retinue of life ; 

White worshiping girls or shapes of hoary eld, 



HEBAKLES. 69 

O'er whom, iu i^roiul dictation, it appeared 
To send them through their cloudy periods. 

Now darkening the deep-indented hill, 

The uncertain circle of the horizon, 

That crowns the forehead of the kingly earth, 

Slow-laboring, iu doubtful voyage down. 

Like a sick eagle that no more can keep 

Its cloudy pathway level with the sun, 

But sinks oblique unto the swallowing sea. 

Those slopes descending came great Herakles. 

A vision, like some naked element. 

Some tragic personage of fire or mist. 

All undisguised by hues aerial, blent 

In kingly robes of gold or amethyst, 

A triumph pageant of the passed day; 

Figure of loss, colossal sufferer. 

Faded, forgotten shape, with soundless woe 

Agonizing the melancholy air. 

Before his slow, sad footing in that vale 

And the eternal silence of his eyes, 

Parted the busy courtiers of the god. 

And let him enter in the shrine alone. 

Set there before that vivid birth of gold, 

Herakles stood. Some awful words he brought 

From hollow and removed distances, 



70 HERAKLES. 

The while his eyes fastened upon the earth. 

" If there be virtue outward from ourselves, 
If visiting shadows from the starred colures 
Have an efficiency on our dull bulks, 
And can a reconciliation make 
Between our act and us, hear me, O god ! 
I ask no ease from misery, only ask 
Some sentenced certainty, that fortitude 
May boundary madness to its moon-ruled deep. 
O, prosperous shape, born unperplexed and glad 
Into the tragic business of the world, 
Thy voice shall be as balm condemning me. 
Who am an ingrate and a murderer!" 
So came his words, like last year's withered leaves 
Caught in the currents of the summer wind, 
To whirl a moment tiptoe on the earth; 
But unto their appeal no answer came. 
In immobility of brightness rose 
The statued god. Again the hero spoke: 

" If penance needs must second my despair 
Ere yet the purifying rites are done. 
Consider these harsh limbs, this hideous face, 
This bulk, even to death formidable. 
And yield me comfort. Or if gifts must win 



HEBAKLES. 71 

Access for penitence to plead its cause, 
Behold earth's treasuries emptied at thy feet !" 
Then from the edges of his lion robe 
He poured a mass of wealth upon the ground ; 
Original gems, crystals that still retained 
The color of the depths from which they came ; 
Veined gold in quartz embedded, nuggets dull, 
Scarce colorable lumps of silver ore, 
And other metals more disguised ; rich stones. 
Diamonds or rubies or pure emeralds. 
Rough-hidden in the casing of their birth, 
Yet holding and unfolding to the eye 
Unfathomable fires innumerable. 
To his full gesture of bestowal, then, 
A slight cloud touched the god's face, like the blur 
Breathed on a glass by one about to drink. 
But neither from its lips, nor from the dark, 
Oracular abysses of the shrine 
Rose a reply. Incensed, then, Herakles 
Paced up and down, in perturbation huge, 
The while these threatening words found issue forth : 
" Juggler of sleep, pi'oud phantom gliding in 
Upon the tranced vision of the mind. 
Beggar of dreams to piece divinity. 
Building your sway on man's infirmest thoughts, 
I nor solicit nor submit to you: 



72 HEBAKLES. 

From his fond doting I will rescue man ! 

Look to your statue, Phoebus, or I shake 

The borrowed apparition back to earth. 

And with it, from imagination dash 

The action and the awe that was thy hour !" 

So, thundered Herakles, and forthwith sprang 

Upon that slender attitude of light, 

To overwhelm and wrestle it to earth. 

But to his touch the surface of smooth stone 

Melted to sinewy flesh, and 'gainst his heart, 

An equable oppression rose and sank, 

While the whole figure to such radiance woke. 

That in the brightness they were both involved. 

Silent, in doubtful struggle, combating. 

So, for a space; but sudden, Herakles 

Felt all his strength abandon him, and back, 

Hurled headlong o'er the threshold of that shrine, 

Fell he like one struck by a thunderbolt. 

Long there the baffled hero, mutely flung 

Motionless in a thicket, odorous. 

Home of all music and of every bird. 

Vacant, and weary of intelligence. 

Watched the world round him vibrate and aglow. 

The dewy branches of deep-weighted shrubs, 

Did him kind ofiices of abandonment ; 



BERAKLES. 73 

And butterflies, and wise, considerate birds, 

With innocent acceptance of his bulk, 

Charmed struggle from his mind and from his limbs: 

Long there he lay; till in that shaded vale, 

A glittering embassy of noisy shapes 

Thronged numerous, as though intruding noon 

Had waked again all old mythologies; 

For a great queen came thither with her train, 

Suitors and servants, maids and men at arms, 

In proud solicitation to the shrine. 

First, that sole figure of summed womanhood, 

Omphale, the queen, entered. Her proud thoughts 

With pity in contention in her heart, 
Kej)t her eyes ever gleaming doubtfully. 

As in the passage of a sunmier shower 
The sunshine and the rain clings to one bough: 
Still she must charm, and still her gentle air 
Would make amendment for the conquering. 
There as she came, the bulk of Herakles, 
Disfigured and disfeatured in her path, 
Made her recoil, made her again draw near, 
AVith curiosity and some contempt. 
Then, her armed officers she bade secure, 
His blotted aud brute-visaged savagery, 
For triumph or for jest to grace her court, 
Or, with tamed labor, do her husbandry, 



i • HERAKLES. 

And in that temple carelessly she went. 

A malady of laughter set agiin 

The gaping circle of her train, who round 

Herakles clustered. Vacant-eyed, he let 

His limbs be hung in chains, and when the queen 

Again appeared to sight and passed away. 

Slunk in her train he followed where she led, 

Rolling four-footed o'er the flowing earth. 



BOOK VI. 

O, NOT enough the mellow touch of pipes, 
All instrumeuts of emulating sound ; 
And not enough the more apparent art, 
The poise of color and of light divine, 
Caught from day's ultimate, airy images; 
Nor yet the marble imagery of life, 
The billowy agitation of bright stone, 
Bursting in figures of heroic mould ; 
Scarce could the aid of every muse avail 
For fit portrayal of earth's fairest time. 
That night's renewal of the golden age, 
When the high winds, to a triumphant bed, 
Herakles and Omphale heralded. 



76 HERAKLES. 

Ah ! every verse, should be an ocean shell, 

Carved through its curved and echoing intricacies. 

Painted with hues ethereal, inward touched, 

With issue of melodious ecstasy ; 

So to surrender to the trembling air, 

Some echo of the time adorable. 

When the earth, mastered to its savage heart. 

Set palpitate its folding of thick cloud 

With ardor-breathing anguish, till its light 

Flashed fierly to the far-fading stars. 

And in the heaven was the only dawn ; 

When one desire, one influence dominant, 

Moulded in alteration, magical, 

Earth's diverse-sundered races to one kin. 

That lions left their coverts, and, uufeared. 

Came courteous into human companies, 

And the lithe," mailed serpents, through proud courts 

Rolled o'er the .unrustliug marble, innocent. 

Amid a garden, under the light gloom 

And interposition of such foliage 

As is the earliest opened to the Spring 

Blossoms, descending ever to adorn 

His dank, warm bed of grasses, Herakles 

Woke and remembered ; till his eyes forbade 

Memory belief in its own messages. 



HERAKLES. 77 

For sudden was he altered. He had been 

Long time a servant to queen Oniphale, 

A force gigantic, working underneath 

The airy terraces where she abode, 

An undulating shadow in her fields, 

A bulk thickening her thickets, whence he grew 

Irregularly massy with the might 

Of ridged muscles, black with grime of toil, 

Disheveled, and so hidden in himself; 

But now the touch of that tumultuous hour. 

Reared him, smooth-fronted, fresh as was the tree 

That shook its scented blossoms over him. 

His sinews showed under the even skin 

Like water-veiled rocks ; his bright hair rolled, 

Unmatted and majestic, down his neck. 

And his large statue, languidly o'ersmoothed, 

Wooed the fair season with an equal front. 

Bordering that orchard slope a broad stream went 
Inward, to plunge under a hill, on wliich 
A frail boat floated, self-impelled, unto 
The hero's feet. He entered, round it flung. 
And, with swift motion, shot into the gloom 
Of iutertangled branches, bridging o'er. 
And building overhead, within which place 
Light was not, nor direction, save beneath 



78 HEBAKLES. 

Upon the gliding pathway, glimmering. 

Then, as the widening stream grew light, it was 

Choked with innumerable obstacles. 

With archipelagoes of bushes, grey 

And venerable tree-trunks, every one 

A pillar of two worlds in w'ave and air ; 

There the slim-knotted cordage of the trees, 

All the vague sculptures of the virgin Spring, 

Budded with tender difference of green. 

Their misty outlines through the air diffused. 

Miracles confirmed in the smooth-mirroring waves : 

And, as through picture-paved avenues, 

Herakles floated, here and there he saw 

Out of all reach, high on the steep-sloped hills, 

Some blossom-blazoned, solitary tree, 

Held flushed against the morning-reddening sky. 

As . a girl holds a rose-bud to her cheek. 

So, threading still that wave-enchanted Avorld, 

On was the hero hurried, till he heard 

Voices and stir of motion musical. 

Mixed with a cataract's murmur, and he saw, 

Contracted for a fall, the river leap 

Over a shelving ledge ; where, half-submerged, 

The plash of waves against their feet, the veil 

Of water round their bodies, naked else. 



HERAKLES. 79 

Maidens and youths, white-flashing through the foam, 

Rioted on the river's rushing edge. 

O, in their glimmering motion, what disguise 

Of love, what fervent wrestling of fond limbs. 

What mitigated rudeness in attack, 

What coy submission counterfeiting strife ! 

Here, from her victor's arms, some girl outleaped, 

Down flashing to the river's lower bed; 

Here, planted firm against a rush of girls, 

Smothered in smooth embraces, a youth stood ; 

In eddying action, others endlessly 

Dove or danced wild ; while others, writhing up, 

Peered o'er the cataract's face, as the lost foam 

Reclimbs its hollow slope again o'ercurled. 

Held iu eternal hurry thus, the gleam 

Of limb and breast and glorious featuring, 

Mocked ever on that stream's unbroken verge. 

The wave-caught clouds there huddling to descend. 

Upon the beached setting of that stage 

Grated the boat. As fluttering fowls that know 

Their towering trouble, undescried as yet. 

Hovering in heights aerial, so those groups 

Let terror fade their vivid motionings. 

Hastily, the boys seized their swords ; the maids. 

Half vanished in each other's curtaining arms. 



80 HERAKLES. 

But when they saw what great intruder came 
Tumultuous to that peaceful-tranced vale, 
Remembrance fell upon them of their dreams, 
And of the potent figures of the gods, 
And of the solitary shape of Zeus, 
Abandoning his heaven for bright love, 
And, overawed with backward footiug, all 
Melted by many paths out of that place. 

In those retreating shapes the hero saw 
The image of his own desire divulged. 
Larger for languor then his statue seemed, 
His glory softer, but in vain ; the vale, 
Devoid of nymphs a pastoral coldness kept. 
As though it were at heart a monastery. 
Near by, through parted alders, up the slope 
A path clove the thin wood, and onward went 
By many a hollow filled with Autumn leaves. 
The ruins of rememberable years ; 
Wherein the hero entered, following 
The fugitive, light figures lost within. 
Above him, as he slipped or clouib those slopes, 
Suddenly there, amid the sparse trees set. 
Rose up the marble facade of a house. 
The northern frontage of Omphale's court. 
Not flung abroad with open terraces. 



IIEBAKLES. 81 

And pillared platforms in the middle air, 

As were the other sunward-turning sides, 

But up sheer-builded from the trees, with hoar 

And imitating aspect of decay ; 

Midway whose massy surface was a door, 

So choked with roots, so overhung with vines, 

That of its width was left small aperture 

For Herakles' approach, yet, with bent head, 

He entered. luwai'd was a corridor 

Of dwarf-like pillars circling a low court. 

Where, by the dusty -filtered sunbeams lit, 

The banished idols of some twilight race 

Were throned ; splenetic dragons with puffed cheeks, 

And serpents coiled to strike. But Herakles 

Passed through this barriered extravagance 

To where beyond, a darker opening gave 

Sign of some hidden treasure, buried so 

Subjected to such monstrous guardianship. 

At the door of an inner court he paused ; 

Walled with black marble on four sides it was. 

That had no surface, but a lucid depth 

And mystery of removed distances ; 

For roof-unceasing vapors seemed to roll 

Ever obliterated and renewed ; 

While underneath, coil under coil, the room 



82 EEBAKLES. 

To an interior more obscure conveyed, 

Lay in a pool, deepened and duplicate. 

Doubtfully there the hero stood, until 

His sunlight-shrinking eyes enlarged to take 

The myriad apparitions of the gloom ; 

Whence, disengaging, rose a sii]gle form 

To certainty before him. 'Twas the queen, 

Omphale, deep retired, for bath disrobed, 

Like a pure image in a secret shrine. 

Her arms uplift to her recumbent head, 

Left undisguised the naked pliancy. 

The melting curves of bosom and of limb, 

Down to the carved firmness of her feet. 

All marble, save where masses of her hair 

Crusted her form with golden ornament. 

There, on the narrow marge, 'twixt wall and wave, 

In four reflecting mirrors held at poise, 

She stood, divinely doubtful of descent 

Into the bath. Her eyes saw nought beyond 

The dreamy ripples plashing from her foot. 

But Herakles, uplifted from his state 

By the strong-beating pinions of his heart, 

Trampled to earth his dream of servitude, 

And, with the act and gesture of a god 

Sole conquering all realms of soft desire, 

Came forward ; while his smoothly-throbbing throat, 



HERAKLES. 83 

With silver accents uuattained before, 
Shrieked out " Oraplfale !" With a start, the queen 
Woke, reddened, paled, and faded from his sight, 
From the smooth walls and mirroring wave erased. 

Unseen she fled, but blindly in her track 

The hero passed, through pillared labyrinths. 

And giant labors of a century. 

Last came he where great stairways wrought from rock 

Clomb up, divulging on an open space, 

A sunny level set with flowering shrubs. 

Circled with courts in gay caparison 

Of gilded pillars and blown tapestry, 

Into whose daylight scrutiny, undimmed. 

The hero rose, although he heard about 

Echoing alarm in all those corridors. 

The hurrying tramp of gathering men at arms. 

And loud-toned orders to guard all egress. 

Then, where the stir was thickest, where beyond 

Guard of thin-shafted columus intervalled, 

A crowd of men and maidens showed confused, 

Like clouds caught nearest the horizon's line 

At sunset, there he bent his steps. His face, 

Seriously splendid and celestial. 

Awed back the sworded men at arms, and broke 

The inner circle of amazed girls, 



84 HEBAKLES. 

Till throned above him, richly clad, he saw 

A single figure, like the single disc 

From out the bulks of sunset disengaged. 

And knew Omphale, breathlessly intent. 

Ashamed, afraid, expectant, and aflame. 

Then, at her feet he sank and clasped her knees, 

And smiled content into .her welcoming eyes. 

O drowsy maidenhood, still dream-betrothed, 

With what demeanor smilest thou, when first, 

Out of desire divine, thy very hope 

Betrayed unto reality appears '? 

There was no strangeness on Omphale's look. 

In unsurprised acceptance of full bliss. 

Still like a queen she showed. Her molten hair 

Shook shadowy blushes o'er her fringed cheek ; 

Else she was pi'oud in her surrendering 

Her lips unto imperial-levying love. 

Her body to the arms of Herakles. 

Yet now sh^ pushed him back, and laid her hand 

Upon the springy masses of his hair. 

And beyond drowning, fathomlessly deep, 

Plumbed his wide eyes. O, joyous voyager! 

Love, in such limits, still discovering 

Confined continents yet unrevealed, 

Proud purple isles remote, and floating clouds, 



HEBAKLES. 85 

The sunset curtains to warm-colored days. 

Dost thou not laugh at thine own vigilance, 

That fades the crowded glories of the world 

Before the substance of thy gilded dream? 

Full serious were those two. Save their own forms, 

All earth was idle and unnecessary 

Upbuilding and abasing its bright shows 

Without solicitation or comment. 

By this, the brown, usurping twilight came 

And blotted all the princely pageantries, 

Presences of pomp ruling in earthly courts. 

Dusk was the earth, and heaven for change of hue 

Gave but the planet-occupying dark: 

Yet throned above that ebb and flow of shade. 

Alone secure of all terrestrial bulks, 

The leaning figure of that queen was set 

Above the kneeling shape of Herakles. 

But now, the moon, large from its hollow lair, 

Unheralded, unhurried by light clouds, 

Rose slow; and with it on the terraced lawns. 

The hanging platforms of those palace courts, 

The wide-divided steps that swept below, 

Rose statues unexampled yet on earth, 

Innumerable living images, 

Bronze-builded shepherds, loftily erect. 



8G HEBAKLES. 

Accompanying their lutes with breathed words; 

And gveat-limbed athletes flung along the ground, 

With bright, uplifted look and golden luiir ; 

Shapes god-like or heroic ; and beside, 

About among the others so bestowed, • 

Wooed, or embraced, or couched in their shade, 

White girls, abandoning unto the light 

The equal silver of their smooth-wrought limbs. 

Up to the footstool of Oniphale's throne 

This carved revel climbed. She saw it not; 

Slow-rising, with fixed look and captured grace. 

Emerging from the eyes of Herakles. 

With fondest touch his arras she disengaged, 

Curved round her like the halo round the moon, 

Then raised him, and, with hesitating steji, 

And backward question to his happy eyes, 

All unattended, save where from without 

Swelled high the riot of her retinue, 

Through the wide portals of her chamber-door 

She led him, and the gates slid smooth behind. 

Barred at that threshold to immortal bliss, 
Breathlessly there the Hours arrested stood 
Tiptoe, from tilted vases emptying 
Balm, what was meant for ages, moment shed. 
Until the silverly-invadiug moon. 



HERAKLES. 87 

Struggling with gloom in iDillared passages, 

Centred its strife upon those gates opposed, 

And struck their shadow down, and let them start 

In new-appearing nakedness to life. 

Carved by some old artificer they were, 

And fitting barriers to the courts of love. 

Embodied in cryselephantine shapes 

Of mingled silver, gold and ivory, 

In such relief, that in the magic light 

It started, moved, or into distance sank, 

The panel of the first gate, for design, 

Sleep's legend and interpretation held. 

They do mistake who liken sleep to death : 

It is the still-renewing mould of life, 

Creation's officer and confidant, 

The succorable healer of all wounds, 

Man's lease of hope and fortune treasury ; 

Therefore, upon that carved sjoace were set, 

Amid a cloud of dreams, whose lucid eyes 

Alone betrayed their wanderings o'er the field, 

All births and agitations and desires ; 

The flowery-fretted foreground heaved and burst 

With figures enameled or formidable; 

And all the middle distance was astir 

With showers of breaking and rebuildcd foam ; 

While in the upper space, the air intense 



88 HERAKLES. 

Was struggling into shape to be a star. 

Centre of all, a statue, masculine, 

Wrought of sole gold, looked outward with frank eyes, 

Secure of being and authority. 

The constellated zodiac's circle framed 

The panel of the other gate, whereon 

Love was in emblem set — Sleep's complement: 

And, as the gate of sleep was wild and rude, 

With elemental visiouings disturbed. 

So, in this field, were outlines more distinct. 

And human shapes that owe harmonious Love 

Their fashion and perfection. Foremost, were 

Youthful processions always to one shrine, 

Figures so mingled and so beautiful, 

That sexless flowers they seemed unseparate. 

Inward, rose mightier forms. Music, set there, 

Wrought arduous enchantment for the god 

Of wine, and for crowned Ceres dancing wild 

In full abandonment. In midst of all, 

Silverly certain, like the orbed moon, 

A figure feminine arose, whose eyes 

Looked incantation to her eager world. 

— So, by these twin gates shut to their repose, 

Surrendered to such powers of love and sleep, 

The wedded monarchs of the earth did win 

Their perfect hour of all expectancy. 



BOOK VII. 

Again unto the gates of hell, again 

The epic entrance of the under-world, 

Muse-led, I pass. Masters of mighty verse. 

Ancients of utterance in the dawn of time. 

Or later makers of primeval song. 

Who hold the triple world in fealty, 

Smooth your great brows of laughter, do not let 

Intenser lines leap 'twixt your angry eyes; 

Here is no playing with your sceptres, here 

No baby usurpation of your thrones ; 

No legend bring I, and no chronicle 

Of ever-during sorrow overtold ! 

Blindfolded by the Muse, blandly I pass 



90 HEBAKLES. 

Amid frustrated shadows, who, so foiled, 

Enter not with their horror on my heart. 

My ears hear not their shrieks, my eyes do know 

No deeper night than of the drooping hair 

And glittering tresses of the gracious Muse. 

So winging, so embraced, I wander through 

Momentous intervals, empty to me. 

Save from the silence what my heart forbodes; 

Or what portents of passion or of pain 

Imagination, building on the wind. 

Recovers of hell's august pageantry. 

Till last I near my end, and fi-ee my eyes, 

And, with permitted and prevailing gaze. 

The outlines and the outward shapes of hell 

Discern ; the strange dominion of the dead, 

Its pallid fabrics of primeval flame. 

That single essence of a thousand things ; 

And, mid the pillared distances opaque, 

Princes and prisoners and births of pain ; 

Till, growing used to the ruddy glow, 

My eyes make out, bright above all the blare, 

The height of Aides, and below his throne 

Ilerakles, and beside him the sunk shapes, 

Pirithous and Theseus, sentenced; 

And, shifting like the boundaries of a dream. 

Hell's vague-appearing and dissolving queen. 



HEBAKLES. 91 



But I must tell how came gi-eat Herakles, 

How came Pirithous aud Theseus there. 

O, that my tougue its wonted use could change, 

Its fashion of unprofitable speech, 

Its faded and familiar utterances, 

And from the ever-melancholy wind, 

Aud from the mass of Ocean's loud despairs, 

Coin accents that should answer to my theme! 

O, in what conched shells, what carved pipes, 

Is pent the music that must make complain 

For Hippodamia dead, for Pirithous 

Low moaning like the ocean at her feet! 

Ah ! leveled is the statue of the earth. 

Stilled is the light, the life, the harmony, 

That made the golden but swift-gliding years 

Forgetful guests, S'leep-sunken round her hearth. 

Three days beside her couch Pirithous mourned, 

And would not stir; what could he do? where go? 

What place was void of golden memories, 

Secure from recollection of the dead? 

So, like a carved, eternal monument. 

Over her bed he bent. His rigid limbs. 

With their contained agony possessed. 

Answered no more the motion of his will. 

Then to that chamber, with averted gaze, 



92 HEBAKLES. 

Theseus came, and led his friend away, 

Unto the threshold of blank horizons. 

The world-o'erlooking portal of his house. 

Where the soft fingers of the gentle air 

Smoothed his unequal muscles and relaxed 

The glittering terror of his strained eyes, 

Filled now with few bright tears, and from his throat 

Loosened the dangerous tumult of his voice. 

Pent, like a wind in intricate passages. 

Self-multiplied, begotten on itself, 

That thus swelled forth : " O, air-compelled pipe. 

Spirit of man, fingered by listless gods, 

Why dost thou heed, why dost thou meditate. 

The winding passion in thee so imnmred ? 

Why grow enamored of the foreign iDreath ? 

O, 'tis immortal spite, to fill our souls 

With violent energy of life and love 

And give no satisfaction to desire ! 

But I will be avenged. O, I will take 

Requital for the horror of my doom ; 

My soul leaps forth to dare the universe, 

And drive the god-ghosts from our vexed earth ; 

Not only shall their altars smoke no more. 

Not only shall their statues be laid low, 

As was the breathing image of my bride, 

But I will raise a mortal power, that shall 



HERAKLES. 93 

Threaten with overthrow hell's gates. Theseus, 
Since Aides does compel my bride to walk 
Forever unemployed, in his pale realms, 
The pallid queen of hell will I dare drag 
From those perpetual twilights to the day, 
And throne her with me in these earthy halls. 
Persephone alone shall be my queen !" 

He ceased, and from his face Theseus caught 

A sombre light, and felt within his breast 

Like exultation at the desperate act. 

And to prompt issue put they their design, 

By heralds summoning the world to arms 

For vast confederate warfare. Round those halls 

Encamped myriads, like the murmuring leaves 

Each to its neighbor moving, till their stir 

Through all the forest is one echoed note 

Kept busy life. Artificers wrought there 

Such armory as might defy defeat ; 

But most those armies from Pirithous' face 

Took confidence ; its clear, inspired look 

Was augury of golden years to come. 

For which men might risk all : even poets there, 

Who praised Death more than all the conquerors, 

Slunk in his train. But when the hero led 

That huge, embattled armament away, 



94 HERAKLES. 

Aimlessly undirected, here and there. 
Through forests deej) or desert intervals. 
To meet no foe, but still to melt in earth, 
Choking the mountain passes, or the sands, 
With heaving graves, fear fell on all; and fast, 
Like gleaming frost-work undei'ueath the sun, 
Dissolved the whole array, and left alone 
The kings heroic to adventure more. 
To whom, then, opened suddenly the hid 
Entrance of hell. Therein they made their way. 
Devious and dreadful ; but no need to tell 
Their journey or its lamentable end. 

But when to the world-wandering Herakles 

Word of that errand came, in his heart rose 

Unconquerable envy ; and contempt 

For his own deeds fell on him, and what time 

The world had missed its heroes and forgot, 

Desire wrought in him to deliver them : 

And so all business he laid aside, 

And chose diis toughest arrows and his sword, 

And else, all naked, followed in their track. 

What sinewy struggle had he for descent. 

Battle continual from his entei'iug. 

His never backward-looking face now lived 

Above a sheaf of lightnings, now was grown 



BERAKLES. 95 

The only centre of dispersed glooms. 

Yet, with swift shafts and ever-heaved sword, 

Tlirough passive or opposing obstacles, 

He won his way, downward; till round him oped 

Hell's hollow and decaying horizons. 

And all its restless fabrics, still renewed 

With mortal masonry in every part, 

Set with live statues, and so altering 

With every posture of the prisoned shapes. 

Centred of these he stood; and fronting, saw 

Loom earth's immitigable enemy. 

Great Aides. In his eyes his comrade kings, 

Yet no more bound than was their rescuer, 

Looked hopeless sorrow and heart-quelling fear. 

But Herakles, like some old forest bulk 

That rustles with the wind, but rouses not 

Until the air is thick with hurrying bolts, 

Then yields itself unto the thunderstorm, 

Aud wrestles down its writhing opponent, 

Dilating stood, the while his questioning eyes 

Rolled o'er hell's legendary visages 

And sombre bulks; many a name known there 

Was yet an echo in the upper earth, 

And came unto his lips, and wandered forth 

In adjuration. Huddling came his words. 



96 HEBAKLES. 

More violent than those heaved shapes that sweep 

With spreading nostrils and wind-combed manes, 

Gone pawing up the under ocean waves; 

More glorious than those bronzed images 

Set in the gateway of the sun, which pass 

Instant ethereal to the lightened west, 

Under the level arches of the sky ; 

More sovran than a populace of sound 

Storm-gathered in a valley, thronging through 

A fissure of reverberating rock. 

To spread again over the wider earth 

Vibrating to the far-attending stars : 

So sudden was his speech ; all, all, alas ! 

Echoless to those thought-abandoned bulks, 

Those undisturbed outlines of decay 

Reared up about him. Hopelessly he turned, 

And called Theseus and Pirithous up 

For one last strife. Armed rose they and in time, 

For Aides, over-panoplied in gold, 

Blazing, a prodigy of fiery life. 

Leaned from his throne in ominous threatening.- 

Death's face is the forgetfulness of fear. 
Flung back without a struggle, to their eyes 
Dreams, budded, blown, or waiting to be born, 
Came like wind-rufiied roses, row on row, 



BEBAKLES. 97 

As o'er rliem hui;g their immineut fate. Thej seemed 
Like three speut swimmers in an angry surge, 
Who cease to strive, and slowly down withdrawn, 
Accept the singing promise in their ears, 
The flattery of the all-persuading deep. 
So they; but, like a ruining, rescuing wave, 
That shakes them from their sleep, and on the shore 
Hurls them up, bruised and breathless, suddeu rose 
Between them and the immitigable king 
•Persephone. Her vague, displaced frame 
Collected stood, the palest star of hell. 
Yet a protecting influence; low her voice 
Throbbed distantly in their ears, as the vast sea 
Fills yet and empties some removed shell. 
"Aides, O, sombre lover, thou sad king, 
I own no limitation to thy sway ; i 

And yet, unblotted by oblivion's draught, 
Intruding dreams come to me, and I see 
Again the sunny house where I was boim, 
Ocean, earth's satisfying slopes, the air, 
That ample pasture of immortal herds, 
Ay, the great stars themselves. Thou dost not know 
How, when I w^auder careless from thy side, 
1 wait the coming freightage of the dead, 
Only to take some message from glazed eyes, 
Catch some last pictured image, iriscd there. 



98 HERAKLES. 

Some curve of columns teudril capitaled, ' 

Some flutter of fringed eyelids sorrowful, 

Some sunlight-quivering shaft iu leafy shields. 

So, by such moment glimpses to rebuild 

Earth up again about me. I am like 

A blind girl wandering iu a palace hall. 

From pillar unto pillar stealing forth, 

To touch and trace their marble ornament, 

To kiss the tendrils carved on their cold shafts, 

And by imagination to presage 

The figure and the color of the world. 

But now there come to me from my fair home, 

No pale, Avau hostages of death, witli one 

Last picture in their ever-gated eyes. 

Like one wan flower allowed for memory ; 

But ruddy, princes of the halls of health, 

Figures who rob invention of reward. 

More beautiful than gods to my dim sight. 

In that they do remember me, O king. 

The sons thy love does make impossible. 

Be pitiful, O Aides, let them live." 

So like a tree-trunk, eaten through by fire. 
Blackened and charred, until the dusk reveals 
Its veined ember-flashes underneath, 
Or like some living bulk of Autumn woods, 



HEBAKLES. 99 

lu faded, sere apparel clad to siglit, 

That to the undulating Avind lays ope 

Its inuQr vividness of velvet red, 

Vibrate arose the interceding queen, 

And Aides, under his suspended frown. 

Gnawed at his lip. Then, leaping from his throne, 

He caught her slender form up, and compelled. 

With kisses and embraces violent, 

The ruddy blushes back to every vein, 

Shoal after shoal in golden urgency ; 

Then let her go, and turning, strode away, 

A fiery shadow in that sombre air, 

Flinging this answer back : " Persephone, 

Secure as summer in Arcadian hills 

Shall be their lives whom thou hast ransomed." 

Then to those heroes turned the gentle queen 

And bade them gone. Great Herakles arose, 

And rose Theseus, but Pirithous knelt. 

As to delay her dying energy — 

What was his prayer? Worship has but one \vord, — 

'Twas Hippodamia ; but by him pronounced, 

All eloquence inherits from that name. 

A melancholy answer then the queen 

Gave to his cry: "Mortal, know thine own self, 

Nature in thee holds yet its offices. 



100 HEBAKLES. 

And would'st thou hold communion with the dead? 

Incompetent ghosts foi* life inconsolable, 

Are all the visions of this empty realm, 

Deaf, blind, unstable actors of a dream. 

Yet, if a fitful apparition be 

The object of thy venture to this place. 

Her shalt thou see whom thou did'st follow here." 

Then to her motioning, fi'om the moving flames 

Wrought into architectures, ever lost 

In sombre indistinctness of design. 

Were outlined sloping lawns and forest trees. 

With distance-dwindling allies in between, 

From out whbse misty undergrowth emerged 

The summoned Hippodamia. Not as once, 

Gold-throned uiDon the dusk verge of the earth, 

Incarnadine incarnate, a new star 

Born to disturb all old astrologies. 

But pallidly appearing like a cloud 

Slow-builded from the shredded wreaths of day. 

With feet uncertain on the fading sward, 

By starts she moved ; the fingers of one hand 

Her other wrist encircled, or withdrew 

Some unapparent curtain from her face. 

Or beckoned to some hope invisible. 

Dim actor of impassioned reverie. 

With sad reiteration of each pose 



HEBAKLES. 101 

And gesture of an earlier ecstasy, 

She seemed to image to that burning world, 

Love's history and all-enviable dream. 

80, slow she came to where Pirithous stood, 

Leaning transfigured ; in whose face a light, 

Unborrowed from the accidents of earth, 

Sunsets or stars, or heightened blare of hell. 

Waited imperial welcome : on she came. 

Came, passed, and faded in forgetting air. 

Rapt in the idols of her pageant thought. 

A moment after her the hero gazed. 

Then, like the ocean's whirlpool-pillared wave, 

Sank shattered on the shifting floor beneath. 

But- over his abandoned form, the queen, 

Persephone, with pitying aspect bent. 

Doubtful of what requital, what relief 

Were tolerable to him. Last, her eyes 

Grew filmy-bright like dewy-cobwebbed grass, 

As though she did surprise some partial hope. 

And in his ear few words she breathed, and traced 

With finger-tips his forehead. Up he rose, 

Staggering, and, with vacancy of gaze, 

Turned to his comrades, who, with gentle touch, 

In due obedience to the motioning queen, 

Forth guided him, climbing to upper air. 



102 HEBAKLES. 

There was a mad king once in Thessaly, 

Who o'er the moon-swayed motions of his reahii, 

Built riot to an universal rule. 

Ajiproach his courts. Through the slant coverts thick 

And foliage-deadening curtains of the wood, 

Noise of continual quarrel and uproar 

Of voice and lute, to purposed discord set, 

Confounds the ear. O'erlook the leafy fence, 

And through the intervalling lawns, shade thronged, 

And pouring outward from the pillared courts. 

Appears an interlude extravagant 

Of mortal shapes. Frenzied with wine, thoy leap, 

Dancing and laughing, to the varied notes 

Of instruments in separate dissonance. 

Amid them moves the king. His massy limbs, 

Continually employed in some excess. 

Urges the revel on. If thought he has, 

'Tis faded soon as formed. On action forced. 

Eld's splendid savagery in him, o'erlives 

Youth's heart and high monitions. On he moves, 

Some feast superfluous to bid prepare, 

Or set his herald-trumpets to announce 

A hunt in the dim woods, and the whole rout 

Whirling down some deej) hollow to withdraw. 

Fallen like the thick-foundering Autumn leaves. 



BOOK VIII. 

0, I COULD mount uuto the morning sky 

And seize the glorious horses of the sun, 

And make them journey nearer to the earth, 

To plunge their fetlocks in the faded foam, 

And warm the frore old ocean with their breath ; 

But I am girt and guarded all about 

By melancholy aspects of my time, 

An evening pageant of most earthy men, 

Whose filmy eyes, whose lean an^ withered hands 

Record alike the motion of the stars. 

And overcount, with more delicious touch. 

The smoothed pieces of their yellow gold. 

But I will back unto those shapes that make 



104 HEBAKLES. 

A legendary murmur in the hills, 

Suuk there, Ijy early revel overcome. 

I touch a goblet of the muse's wine, 

I drink, and am a Greek and am a god, 

Agciiu I guide my sheep by streams, that wind 

With pastoral flutings in their reedy verge; 

Or up embowered and eternal slopes 

Drive herds of lofty cattle toward the sun ; 

Or move again in little, walled towns. 

Contented so, forever so enclosed 

With liviug imagery, lifted up 

On pillar and pedestal and rich-carved plinth 

To the clear light and the unclouded sky. 

And more than marble round me is awake: 

The heroic figures of earth's herald years. 

Attired for festival, throng past my eyes, 

A simple pageant of humanity, 

Tb.at, as the lyric issue of the dawn 

Light streams o'er eastern slopes, advances forth 

With equal ardor, and the breathed stir 

Of hushed expectancy. And lo! what seemed 

The color and the clamor of the day. 

Upheaving on a hundred horizon hills, 

Huge disentangled to a hundred bulks, 

In heaviest procession marching down, 

By tossing pennons lightly piloted. 



HERAKLES. 105 

Then, as the train drew near,, and each pied mass 

Was outlined separate, mostly did they seem 

Barbarous shapes, as though the monstrous growths 

That play upon the ocean's floor should cease . 

To foam themselves into each other's mouths, 

Condensed to certain strength, and so be heaved 

Upon the earth to make it tributary. 

For in the van those Asia-pasturing beasts, 

Vast elephants, rolled on, and on them rode 

Swart images of the dusk-dreamed East, 

Wliose rich-adorned robes gleamed to the air, 

Like evening trees bright with the hoarded rain : 

Amid the larger beasts, with sidewise looks, 

Those concentrated statues of all force, 

Maned lions, moved : in order following. 

Treasure-entrusted camels, whose rich loads 

Of rugged ingots or bright-gleaming stuffs. 

Or the dull-traced, metal armory, 

Or dedicated vessels vowed to gods, 

Shone through the wicker covers : then came oa 

A retinue of harvests of all climes. 

By mighty oxen in wide-wallowing wains 

Drawn, the apparent wealth of all the earth. 

Aud with them all man's tamed following, 

Horses and cattle and deep-wooled sheep. 



106 HERAKLES. 

After the ruder subjects of this train, 

Came on the human hordes ; and, first of all. 

Triumphing in the triumph of their king, 

The metal-breathing, martial men at arras, 

With war-unwearied frames, firm-fronted came, 

And destiny seemed marching there steel-clad. 

Soon the persistent gleam of armor gave 

Place to dispersed hues; the prisoners passed 

Singly by, or in groups behind their guard. 

The gathered fairness of the secret world 

Went foremost; half earth's household's beggared were 

To furnish forth the glory of the train. 

Matron and girl, queen and handmaiden met, 

Equaled in beauty and abandonment : 

Some, loosely robed, their liberal beauty gave 

Unto the air, while others, naked, passed 

Half-secret in their shame-concealing grace. 

Behind them came their fate-abused kings, 

Captive, in grey procession, like the clouds 

Turned from the faded threshold of the west. 

One walked with eyes fixed on the sinking ground, 

And visited his grave with every step ; 

One lifted his unto the domed sky, 

With hopeless question in their fixed gaze ; 

One, bouud, with maddening struggle sought to end 

The outrage of his triumph-ti'ailiug life; 



HEBAKLES. 107 

But all alike but added to his state 
Who followed them, as follows the red sun 
The presage of his light-iuformed clouds, 
Herakles, iu his chariot, held erect 
In armor of invulnerable gold, 
Completing the full triumph of that train. 

Swift guided he his horses to a space 
Midway the walled village, where arose 
The huger architecture of his home ; 
Porches, gigantic to the unhewn earth. 
Then, at the entrance to a hundred halls, 
Down flung he, and in entered, sweeping slow, 
Infinitely human, infinitely proud, 
To let no touch familiar dim his eyes 
Heroic, or unstring his tuned heart ; 
But ere his feet had kissed the threshold floor, 
Blind with the benediction of his tears, 
He stood ; while to his heart sweet influences passed, 
Old ages' bearded kiss upon his hands, 
The warm embrace of girls about his knees, 
Presences of abashed youths, whose eyes, 
Admiring, measured his enormous bulk, 
The encircling passion of his wife's sweet arms, 
Thrilling his soul with potent energy. 
'So for a space; but soon himself again, 



108 HEBAKLES. 

He ruled the riot powers of his breast 
Ready for disposition of affairs. 
And, in good time ; for opposite him rose 
A gleaming form, quick greateniug to a god, 
With slim, grey limbs, but gradually disclosed 
Up to his burning head, and golden eyes 
Set throbbing through the region guise he wore. 
" Thou Hermes, what vain message of the gods 
Comes to intrude on my tranquillity?" 
Smile under smile lay in deep Hermes' eyes, 
Like clouds on water, water on grey rock, 
Together visible, yet all veiled at once, 
And, with frank air, he answered : " Herakles, 
Gone are the early races of the earth, 
Gone are the sweet monitions of the air 
That taught them how to rule. Mortals no more 
Can overpeer the grey and gliding ghosts, 
Who are become life's real regalities. 
And only thou in opposition 

Warrest against their might. Hence am I come 
With olive-offer to thee. Airaable peace. 
With aiding, added gifts, bring I from Zeus, 
And promise heaped upon prosperity. 
For all the synod of the sky declare 
Thee for their mMe and fellow, and bestow 
What only yet for glory thou did'st lack, 



HERAKLES. 109 

An immortality to do new deeds. 

And, so thou dost accept this offered truce, 

Look where in heaven thy palaces are set, 

Where thou may'st parcel out futurity." 

He ended, and the glory of his limbs, 

AVith an intolerable interior light, 

Shook off their cloudy limits, like a tree 

Wherein the sun has made its tent. Above, 

The wide, eternal distances of air, 

Condensed to daylight constellations. 

Hung over Herakles ; who there beheld 

A front of variable, emblazoned art, 

A baseless, breathing fabric, opening 

Ever in inner and inteuser courts ; 

An architecture of bridged, builded worlds. 

Gravely thereon he gazed ; but soon his eyes, 

Full rather of grey glimpses of the earth. 

Turned upon Hermes, and with solemn words, 

In iteration like those slow-wrung drops, 

That fall in forest hollows when the rain 

Hangs in suspense, thus answered he the god : 

" I ask no aid of thunder to be great. 
Though cold death closes in my life's employ. 
Yet also do thy starry emblems pace 
Earlier to emptier horizous than I. 



110 HEBAKLES. 

I beg no pity from the banished hours, 

Nor ever seek untimely to awake 

The figures of the glad successive days, 

Who rise one after one, and in ray arms 

Yield up what grace they have, like iustaut waves 

Moulded inuumerable, and running up 

To break their vases of fresh, fragrant foam, 

lu grateful coolness on the earth's tired feet. 

Man centred in life's circle ever stands. 

The moment is his one possession : wise 

Is he who bends the vigor of his soul 

To apprehension of the fugitive. 

Strife is man's happiness ; and when engaged 

What placid music, though much promising, 

Can enter to his deafened hearing; what 

Demand makes youth of immortality! 

O, wisely builded for delight is life; 

Brief; could aught charm that were unchangeable? 

Bright; ever with new bloom, or with decay! 

Pain has its own reprieve, nor should it ask 

Eternity to medicine a bruise. 

O, I have felt in all tumultuous life. 

Extreme of exultation or despair. 

An equal passion of life; and now I feel 

Sweet pleasure at the thought of the calm grave 

And endless rest, forever unperturbed, 



HEBAKLES. Ill 

Abandoned by all throbbing impulses, 

Into Oblivion's lucid arms returned. 

Zeus-ward direct thee, Hermes ; useless thy 

Sweet-tongued solicitation, neither can 

Dreams, omens, lightnings, all the employ of Zeus, 

Command my spirit to his call. Farewell." 

So said the hero, turned him to his throne. 

Set iu the middle of that surging crowd. 

By columns veiled, itself built like a rock 

To overbrow the ever-beating surf 

Foamed round it ; for unto him seated there 

With Deianeira, the whole concourse thronged, 

By touch familiar or wide-taking eyes. 

For adoration, to prove palpable 

His limbs that fronted had so many wars. 

With kindliest salutation, Herakles 

Met all appeal ; but still his eyes would lift 

Unto his doorway, where the herald god, 

A silver cloud diminished to a star. 

Waited. Soon, omens that he h^d denied 

Stirred in his house ; wide, shadowy-winged bats • 

Flapped in the faces of the wondering crowd, 

With filthy desecration of their joy ; 

A beaked eagle, brave in plumes of gold. 

Rapid, as from unmeasured fall, there stooped 

And seized the hero's sceptre, loosely held, 



112 HERAKLES. 

At which a tremor of amazement went 

Over the throng. . The column-confined air, 

Or sunnily api^arent or in shade, 

Was like gold melted in a crystal vase, 

Sweetly commended unto mortal lips, 

Yet every figure, swaying underneath 

Herakles' eyes, felt in between his heart 

And the warm blank of light, black portents rise 

In indistinct creation, like the swarms 

Of night-birds pouring from some creviced rock 

To fill the dusk with wings, until the ear 

Mistakes the wind to be malignant life; 

And from his fellow in recoil, each shape, 

Unneighbored in imagined destinies. 

With staring eyes and working lips, beheld 

A separate horror. Some saw through the shafts, 

That boundaried full daylight from that house, 

Dim funerals go ; some through the roof unclosed 

Saw brazen-volumed serpents coil and curve ; 

And others «aw what thought could not receive 

And keep unshaken in its habitude: 

But certain unto every eye was set 

Their king's face, struggling through a yellow cloud. 

That from his mien removed all potency, 

Blotting its human semblance. Then the crowd 

Dissolved, as the ocean does withdraw 



HEBAKLES. 113 

Out of some quiet harbor, where it leaves 
No shallow wave to widen lingeriuglj, 
Or as a knot of serpents, Avhen a fire 
Is kindled in their haunt, uncoil their cold 
Embraces, gliding from the flame to find 
Issue by evei-y outlet from the den. 

Purple dominions and proud dynasties, 

Vast powers of antique earth, long entered in 

Death's sober gateway to prodigious life. 

Thus to inherit doubly in mankind. 

Become a portion of our kneaded mass, 

And all the flowing spectres of our dream ; 

With what reluctant passage to eclipse 

Weut your stars to their larger firmaments, 

Pilots of unknown seas and unborn men ! 

So Herakles, indignant at his doom. 

In flaming agitation from his seat 

Sprang, and his footsteps filled those halls with noise 

Embayed against the loud-embattled storm, 

In outer daylight waging; for the gods, 

Leagued to destroy, seemed met about that house. 

Yet to the portal came the king, to front 

The lightning's sworded exercise of arms. 

The unequal, deadly thunder that below 

Made surge the earth, and shook a dozen ways. 



114 HERAKLES. 

The pillars of the palace, whereiu, framed. 

He stood : how frail to all that force, how fond, 

Alone, deserted, to those large allies. 

Sad seemed he and his limbs he o'ersurveyed, 

As doubtful of success, or, doubting more, 

Its good to him ; then, whether in his heart 

Something gave way, or that his power took 

Some deadly hurt from the thick-dealing bolts, 

Into himself he sank, and so appeared 

The beggared presence of a white decay; 

And, lifting up his filming eyes, he saw 

In that carved porch and on his palace walls, 

High overwrought in lengthening fa9ades, 

His marble conquest of mortality 

Figured. There blazoned forth on every side 

Infinite iterations of himself, 

Imaged at highest poise of all his act 

Led on the eye ; into which calm, white forms, 

Tho apparitional lightning breathed such life 

That day seemed but the torched vestibule 

To the triumphant presence of his deeds, 

So dominating in their marble might. 

The inspiration of those vast designs 

Filled the king's face a moment, nothing touched 

Or anguished by mortal ingratitude. 



HEBAKLES. 115 

Pity and praise are for the weak and base, 

But the great sjiirit, for its own sake, does Avork. 

So mourned he nothing. Yet, although he felt 

His pains and labors pleasant iu review, 

Their huge inconsequence disturbed his soul : 

So, when the god-urged lightnings, to the day 

Faded, from that high platform feebly down, 

Unsteadily he staggered. Something yet 

Of greatness undeterred by accident 

Upheld him and on guided. Faint he passed 

Through the long, hollow-sounding, lonely streets, 

Beyond the gated walls unsentineled. 

To where the sylvan-decked, descending slopes 

Fell with their quiet shadows in a stream. 

There the continuous murmurs of the noon. 

The brushing noise of numerous sheep about, 

The shrill, wood-echoes of the Cicadse, 

The faint, accented plash of leaf and wave, 

In subtle breathings of insistent charm. 

Rose to his mind. O'erwrought with agony, 

A space he heard them not, but still they came, 

And soon his curved ear caught them, and he leaned 

O'er the earth's vibrating intensities. 

Gloriously statued to tlie air again. 

From out his face the rule of life and thought 

Vanished- Grown one with Nature's growths, he knew 



IIG , HERAKLES. 

Here was his home, here was his horizon, 
And for him, baring her mysterious limbs. 
Nature's self saw he waiting. Suddenly, 
His heroic frame, fulfilled of all desire, 
Crashed backward in the arms of his sole mate. 



DON SPIRITO. 



I. 

A LEGEND OF ALCALA, 

Tpirough the many gated mouth 

Of some river of the South, 

Egyptian Nilus, or anon 

Orinoco, Amazon, 

Who has sailed not in his dreams. 

Drawn inward o'er enchanted streams; 

Sailed, and seen, and had at call, 

Eldorado's capital, 

Mid its myriad, islanded. 

Sloping lawns from heaven led. 

And its hanging terraces. 

Cloud-belted, or with fiery trees? 

Whose sleep has not had this pass? 



118 DON SPIRITO. 

And been thus adventured, — as 
First the shattered fields of foam 
Where the unfixed planets roam, 
And Avitli sad, incessant haste, 
Heaves the moou across the waste ; 
Then, an anchored line of palms 
Beating back the surf's alarms, 
Till the billows die away, 
Inward, in infantile i^lay, 
And a mighty stream appears, 
Margined by those clouds, that years 
Mould and ruin ; forests dim. 
That in the morning haze do swim 
Bright o'er the waves' mystery. 
Deeper, darker, hurrying by, 
Then, the unplumbed current shoots 
Through, amid, the forest roots, 
Sheer against the walled trees 
That roof their own drowned images : 
Trunks built double from one base, 
Builded twice in serene space, 
Limit there the river's course, 
But beyond, its wider force 
Sylvas, weedy beaches' dress. 
Flowery islanded fertileness ; 
Through lake, lagoon, igarape, 



DON SPIBITO. 119 

Silvery-shredded, the stream's way 

Rises to its visioned end ; 

And with every curve aud beud 

Still fulfillment seems at Land 

Of Eldorado's fabled laud. 

Cities on the shores arise, 

Gaudy iu their tropic guise, 

Tiled roofs aud stained walls; 

So Para no sooner falls, 

Fades magnificently dim 

On its wide-curved harbor's rim, 

But Breves rises to the glance, 

In motley, pied extravagance ; 

With florid-flaunting balconies 

And red towers through the trees. 

Glowing blithe aud debonair. 

Out at elbows, but at ease ; — 

Aud a dozen follow there, 

Cities, with cool, gi-ass-grown streets ; 

Secret aud secure retreats 

Of languor aud delicious day ; 

Monte Alegre, Sautare; 

Villages all, that mock afar 

The sacred city Alcala. 

There the wavering nope at last 



120 DON SPIRITO. 

Certain is ; though vaguely past 

Streams a lurid light of dreams. 

Palpitant the city seems, 

With its lawns and lakes, whereon 

Purple and Vermillion 

Mixed do strive. Its towers of fire. 

Wrought shadows of divine desire, 

Front down the darker seeming day, 

That is starred in its dismay. 

Moon nor torched sun, therefore, 

Needs to touch the builded ore • 

Into an intenser ray ; 

Thousand-hued, the shadows play 

On j)alace front and gold-paved street ; 

And in the reflected heat 

Fountains float into the air ; 

And the palm-leaves flaunting there 

Whiten, wither, and grow green 

Ere a moment intervene : 

Deep into the hollow sky 

Plumed hanging-gardens take the eye ; 

And below, in the coiled lake. 

Incessant pictures form and break. 

Yet, though its jeweled light flush or die. 

Hushed does the city ever lie ; 

Gigantic statues sentinel 



DON SPIRITO. 321 

Its gateways, of whom legends tell 

All their wars and revels vast, 

And their glory in the past ; 

That now chained, and charmed in sleep, 

Sole, inviolable, deep. 

By the gates of Alcala 

Wait the noise of some new war. 

But a stir comes deep and slow 

From those streets, and to and fro. 

Through garden arch or palace door. 

On echoing pave or corridor, 

Many a stately, antique Don 

Soberly proceeds ; anon 

Imaged in his perfect year. 

Point-device the cavalier. 

Many a gallant walks and hums. 

Slashed and suited to his thumbs; 

Spanish ruff and hose and lace, — 

But no splendor on his face. 

Balconied, or garden-wise, 

Ladies, too, in rich disguise, 

There disport them. In soft sway 

Their hammocks push the air away, 

Or in state majestical 

They take homage : dull for all 

Seems their beauty ; no more their's 



122 DON SPIBITO. 

Nature's graces, subtle snares, 

Beckoning lips, and beaming eyes, 

Love's imperial coquetries. 

What rightly to Love "does belong, 

They have forgotten ; moonlight-song, 

Serenade, or finger-tips 

Caught through gratings, touch of lips. 

Ecstasies and pains, that sing 

Remembering or imagining : — 

But instead such joys, to them 

The starry flash of gold or gem, 

Ceremonial and parade. 

Cloth of gold, silks and pomade; 

And their fathers, husbands, prate 

Of the glory of the state; 

And their lovers undisturbed 

Air of passion tightly curbed. 

Somewhat of that self-content, 
Out of Alcala once went ; — 
Came a sighing in the air. 
Came a voice remote and rare. 
And each Senorita's breast 
Throbbed audibly like a wakened nest. 
Word through the city went apace, 
Of a slim youth with haunting face, 



DON SPIBITO. 123 

Flitting here and there, and still 

Kich music pouring out at will, 

Nightly at some grated door. 

Ay, and the tales added more, 

How white hands oped the lattices 

Like charmed doves fluttering for egress. 

Mention and mystery like this rates 

A mutiny with magistrates. 

So the sad Corregidor 

Paced nightly all the city o'er ; 

And the docile citizens 

Kept watch by dozens and by tens. 

But Don Pedro Azrael, 

Governor of the citadel, 

Swore deep a triple-sacred oath. 

By his particular saint, and both 

His skied ladies, to achieve 

Doom of this singer who did thieve 

The souls out of ladies' sides. 

Lo! where his stately house provides 

Kichest hangings and pictured light, 

Cloistered sat he. Wan and slight, 

Yellowed like ancient ivory 

Gleamed his face, that seemed to be 

Carved delicate for a breath to break. 

Should his curled mustachios shake 



124 DON SPIRIT 0. 

With passion : eyes sunk in his head, 
Dumb to love, to pity dead, 
Curious but for some rare design, 
Or a flagon of old wine. 
So in his leathern chair he sat. 
Just thinking what thought to be at. 
When through the doorway, unannounced 
Entered a figure, and pronounced 
This sentence, bowing courteously : 
" Seiior, I hear you wished for me," 
Started Don Pedro. "What sir, ho! 

You are " " I am Don Spirito, 

Awakener of this guitar !" 
Boy counterfeit of some bright star 
Rather ; lone lingerer of the old 
Divinities, with hair of gold. 
Suddenly, dominating face, 
And smooth limbs, undulating grace! 
Appareled was he in rich guise, 
Brown-velvet to his velvet eyes ; 
Love's very equerry and page 
He stood, the courtier of an age. 
Breathless, a moment on him gazed 
The governor, and dropped his glazed 
Eyes on the ground ; then, with a shout, 
Summoned his servitors from without : 



DON SPIRITO. 125 

" What, ho ! — to centre of the net, 
Flies he for whom our snares were set. 
Go, hurry through the town, bring in 
All witnesses of this varlet's sin. 
Bid each offended husband, sire, 
The accomplice of immodest fire, 
Matron or maiden, hither bring, 
We sit for judgment on this thing!" 
Then intervened confusion, so 
Crowded and jostled to and fro, 
Senores and majestic dames, 
Girls with their breasts and cheeks id flames, 
All centred in that outlaw fair. 

Whose song had stirred their calmed air. 
"Come to the accusation now," 

Cried out the governor, " blanch the brow 

Of this brave rhymer, and relate 

His treason to our law and state. 

AVitnesses! What, Ippolito, 

Your daughter taken ! 'tis a blow 

To us old men ; and Don Cesare ! 

Yours, too, why seemeth the girls are 

Panting, yet proud to show their love; 

What, Donna Violante, dove, 

Cousin, this is not so — and yet. 

Sweet Inez's eyes are on him set; 



126 DON SPIRITO. 

Death is too small a price for this." 
" Ah, father, I, too, have been his !" 
There at the old mau's feet she lay, 
Like a glove tossed by carelessly ; 
A girl large-eyed, sweet-lipped, and proud, 
Sjiite of confession. Half aloud 
She murmured : " If death be the price 
For one look into Paradise, 
Let my life pay the penalty, 
Who lived not, till he bade me be." 
Paled through his thin, transparent make, 
Don Pedro stood ; then, groaning, spake : 
"What! your lij)s crushed to quench his fire? 
Don Spirito, have your desire : 
Your song has conquered us; but go. 
Leave us our ruin and our woe !" 

Thus exiled was Don Spirito, 
Legended. Me it haps to tell 
Somewhat that afterward befell. 



II. 

DON ayes' guest. 

Deep from the hacienda's eyes withdrawn, 

Flore slid through the giant boles, that hedge 

The casa and its sunlit strip of lawn, 

Down the steep bank, unto the river's edge, 

Like a bird with wings folded, falling on ; 
Down to a hollow, hid by vines and sedge. 

She came where her bath waited, to the brim 

Pure and palm-shaded, secret set and dim. 

Overhead lazily a huge macaw 

Flapped, shrieking; on some pinnacle of air. 
Some tree that into heaven did withdraw, 

Harsh-chattering toucans lodged, and monkeys there 



128 DON SPIBITO. 

Trooped onward ia interminable war ; 

Her eyes were challenged by palms plumed fair, 
Vistas of vines, up to the forest roof, 
Through which the sky hung, like a bird aloof 

Mottled and speckled by the afternoon, 

So plashed she in her nest of wave and grass. 

Till a faint echo from the near lagoon 

Reared her white figure from the closing glass, 

Where she was mirrored like a curved moon 
Breathlessly peering through the vines. Alas ! 

What rose has touched and died upon her heart, 

Painting her ivory face with orient art? 

Under the wove lianas, tangle-leaved, 

That kept the river from her cloistered bath, 

A boat, urged by four paddlers, onward cleaved 
Like a bird palpitating on its path. 

Bearing an image in it, who received 
A consecration from the sunset wrath ; 

A boy-god, great of look and glad of mien. 

In a flash born and faded from the scene. 

With dazzled eyes, out of the dimness, then, 
Flor6 took up her garments, climbed the hill, 



DON SPIRITO. 129 

Threaded each narrowing forest-path and glen, 
Aud through the houses, in the twilight still, 

Slid noiseless, unobserved of dogs or men, 
A little flying ghost or vapor chill, 

And gained her room. Her body beat aud stirred 

With too intense a music to be heard. 

Balconied there, her eyes did grope and pore 
Upon the dusk. Below, great torches went 

Tossing between the casa and the shore ; 
Noise of arrival, welcome, upward sent, 

Rose to her from the open casa's door : 
Don Aves, prodigal in compliment. 

Welcomes a guest. Ah, Flore's bosom opes 

With sweeter hospitality and hopes ! 

Unto her mirror, glimmering darkly there. 

Then turned she, and with trembling hands essayed 

Some little heightening of her beauty rare : 

Decked with rich ornament, she seemed a shade 

Moon-chained to the struggling twilight air, 
Divine, but by such silver weight delayed 

From flight or dusk deliverance. Through her door 

She passed, to the bright court-yard corridor. 



130 BOy SPIRITO. 

A star that is to twilight unconfessed, 
A ruffled image on a brooklet's brawl, 

An half-effiiced inscription fire does test, 

And make blaze out, so stood she in the hall, 

Held from the busy babble of the rest ; — 

And she could set her hand to nought at all ; 

While all the house made merry for their guest, 

High festival she held in her own breast. 

So, to a shaded doorway, shy she crept, 
Peering in the torch-flickering banquet-room, 

And her glance instant to her object leapt, 
Where in the centre of the fire and gloom, 

That blazing figure that by her had swept. 
Was set Don Aves' circle to illume ; 

Unraatchable with feats to do or tell. 

Wild artist of the o'er-impossible. 

Wide-mouthed earthen jars did for them spill 

Chica or aguadiente; but thereat, 
Less was the admiration and the thrill. 

Than at the stranger's juggling. As he sat, 
Cards did for him devices of strange skill : 

And^ for the magic change of this and that, 
Don Aves would have given him half his pelf, 
Or even made division of himself. 



DOX SPIBITO. 131 

Little the boy accepted. Here and there, 
A gold chain, or a diamond's rough boss; 

But in exchange he proffered treasures rare, 
Pieces of holy power of the true cross. 

Wands all earth's hidden treasures to lay bare, 
And charms, blessed to protect one from all loss: 

At -which Don Aves reverently bowed. 

And all the simple folk were puffed and proud. 

Then, in requital of their feasting glad. 
Strange histories he told them of his life: 

How at the bottom of the sea he had 

Fought with slow-coiled bulks in slimy strife; 

How Patagonian giants, scaly clad. 

Fatted him once to fall beneath the knife; 

How o'er the frozen mountains of the south 

He had seen ope hell's dragon-guarded mouth. 

Then, lovely legends told he of the dim. 

Unstable islands of the Amazon, 
Appearing on the river's sunset rim, 

But, ere the breaking of the morrow, gone; 
Whose bowers all lovely odors overbrim, 

From flowers forever blooming and unworn. 
Rooted by rivulets, flowing amber-smooth. 
Gold-bubbling fountains of eternal youth. 



132 DON SPIRITO. 

And much more told he; but Don Aves then, 
With stately phrase and sad prolixity, 

Implored this idol of the gods and men. 
That an end of his wanderings should be ; 

That of his house he should be citizen, 

And rear up children for a grandsire's knee; 

For which effect, Flore should be his bride — 

Who straightway at the doorway was espied. 

And, ere she Avas aware, her fluttering shape. 
Hurt by its own vibrations, found a I'est, 

And her full, happy eyes essayed escape 

From mightier ones upon the stranger's breast. 

Who, troubled to that company turned — agape, 
Lay they about him with strange dreams opprest. 

Even Don Aves was o'erpowered thus — 

All largely drunk and so oblivious. 

In the youth's eyes were love and wild desire. 

Clothed by the clinging touches of a maid, 
What flesh would burn not? Yet his eager fire 

Cooled at her innocence, so unafraid ; 
And so he held her at arms-length retire. 

Studying her face's fluttering light and shade ; 
Till last he turned from her with forehead bowed, 
As the moon floateth from a fragile cloud. 



BON SPIBITO. 

She saw liis figure melt into the dark, 
She heard the echo of his steps decay ; 

She heard the stern-quelled dogs a moment bark, 
And with strained fancy at its mocking play, 

A faint, far plash of paddles she could mark. 
O life, thou, too, can'st sail with love away ! 

Dropt like a wine-cup from a sated hand, 

Dead on the threshold lay she, white and bland. 



III. 

THE RESURRECTION AT SAN JACINTHO. 

Foot-hills, ascending to bear on their backs the spoils 

of the forest, 
Seringa, Cinchona, Palm, up into the heart of the 

Andes, 
Halted and huddled and poured their ti'ibute at foot 

of the village 
Sqn Jacintho, mid set on the eastern slope of the 

mountain ; 
Guarded afar by peaks that, like prophets, resumed into 

heaven, 
"Watched from their cloudy cars in a grave, deliberate 

circle. 
Houses of yellow or white, smooth tiled or of painted 

adobe, 



DON SPIBITO. 135 

Dazzling, facing the sun, on the mouutain-side clambered 
and clustered ; 

Balconied, bosomed in bloom, afoam with the orauge-tree 
blossoms, 

Over and over submerged with vine-like billows of 
foliage, 

Roofed with red tiles, to emerge from the green and 
white of the gardens. 
Sunk was the place in repose and limitless joy of 
siesta : 

From the pictured roof of the sky, upheld by cloud- 
carved pillars, 

To the floor of the earth, thick-set with trees in statue- 
like stillness. 

Only the heat of the noontide was stirring in billowy 
ripples ; 

Save where an Indian girl, brown-limbed, and straightly 
erected. 

To the water-jar poised on her head, a-plash with its 
contents, 

Made an obeisance, and said a prayer at the door of 
the chapel 

Set at the end of the town, with a gilded saint in its 
alcove ; 

Or where, over beyond, at the door of the wine-shop out- 
stretching, 



136 DON SPIBITO. 

Sleeping, a muleteer was flung, a-twitch with the trouble 

of insects. ' 
Now, from below, where levels on levels of infinite 

forests 
Fell to the Mamore, or the fabulous Rio do Madre, 
Rose a trumpeted clamor, announcing the coming of 

horsemen : 
And from the twilight of trees, to the width and blare 

of the noonday. 
Straggling in single array, with jingling of spurs, and 

a bugle 
Echoing, blown and reblowu, as if to do duty for 

thousands, 
Twenty or thirty rough troopers rode up the street of 

the village. 
Thirsty and tired were the men, and weary the mules 

and the horses ; 
But in advance of them all, gay-decked, like a bird of 

the tropics, 
Floating and flaunting and filling the air with color and 

music, 
Prancing, Don Spirito went, while ever, with echoes in- 
cessant 
Flung from his bugle, he woke the village, and wooed 

from some lattice. 



DON SPIBITO. 137 

Blushing, a rose, like a star down-flung with a scarf 

trailing after. 
Trooping disorderly followed the men ; the flanks of their 

horses 
Brushing the flush-set houses, whose casements they struck 

with their carbines. 
Onward with laughter they passed, until, as they came 

to the wine-shop, — 
" Halt !" was the word of command. With jests and 

opprobrious banter. 
Called they the host of the house, and bade him to 

serve them with liquor; 
Some in their saddles caroused, while others at ease 

stood dismounted : 
But alone Spirito dove to the cool recess of the 

tavern. 
Seeking some hidden treasure of wine there ; and lo ! in 

the darkness 
Slumbered a Padre within, a flagon of exquisite 

flavor 
Warming forgot on his knees ; up rose he at Spirito's 

entrance, 
Proffering him both the flask and his spiritual benedic- 
tion. 
While with short breathing he garnished each draught 

with Scriptural mention. 



138 DON SPIRITO. 

Sanctified thus, drank the boy — till nothing he saw but 

the Padre, 
Whose corpulence only accompanied him into oblivion , 
Nothing he heard from without of his comrades' riot 

and laughter, 
Heard not the order to mount, or the clanging hoofs 

of the horses. 
Heard not his loud-clamored name ; heard nought till 

afar from the distance. 
Broken and hesitant came to his ear the note of his 

bugle : 
Tumbling, he climbed to his feet, and unto the doorway 

he staggered, 
And through the reeling mists, up the single path of 

the mountain. 
Halting, his comrades he saw, then sank in a heap on 

the threshold. 
Sleep keeps no record of time, and waking, the boy 

knew not whether 
Daylight was strangled, or twilight delayed. The vault 

of the heaven, 
Saturnine, builded of brass, arched over the iron-rigid 

mountains : 
All the near forms of the earth sprang forth in amazing 

distinctness ; 



DON SPIBITO. 139 

Cleaviug their passage of rocks leaped the streams like 

scimetars gleaming, 
Serrated stood out the house-tops sharp-cut; a sound in 

the silence 
Tinkled as when to the ear two stones are struck under 

water. 
"Wondering, Spirito rose; the village seemed wakened 

and anxious ; 
Eestlessly, toward and fro, went women and men from 

the houses; 
One or two mules, with drooped heads, pushed into the 

door of the tavern ; 
Lingering careless along, some men stopped in front of 

the chapel, 
Doffing their hats thereto, with a newly-discovered devo- 
tion. 
Meanwhile, drawing still nearer, yet soundless, the storm 

seemed to gather : 
Only a great drop of rain plashed now aud then down 

on the looker ; 
Silence above, but below alarm and the hurry of 

people. 
Suddenly, down from far, from the innermost coil of 

the tempest, 
Faintly a bugle note came, prolonged by infinite 

echoes ; 



140 DON SPIHITO. 

Then, Avith one sweep fell the night, and a crash of 

lightnings abolished 
Earth and its hills, bi'oken up in a war and volley of 

thunder. 
Thunder and thunder for aye, a passage of arms of 

the giants. 
Washed from their feet by the floods, through the 

flashes showing abysmal. 
Glimmered the forms in that street, like ghosts on 

some far shore forgotten. 
White-faced, looking above, where in fathomless rifts 

of the tempest, 
Armies of angels descended and rose with musical foot- 
steps. 
While in pauses of strife like the monotoned trump of 

destruction. 
Still came that bugle-call in unhesitant, dreadful in- 
sistence. 
Single of all the crowd, in that village street huddling 

and praying, 
Spirito stood erect, and a confident power shone from 

him ; 
Women and men at his feet, clung, struggled, and 

poured out confession, 
Sending through him their appeal for time to work out 

repentance ; 



DON SPIBITO. 141 

Whom with wild bravado he shrived of their sins and 

aud offenses, 
Till to them coming adown through the hollow vale of 

the liglitniug, 
Unto their vision, arose a slender but eminent pres- 
ence, 
Womanly, tender, with eyes as proud and remote as 

the stars are, 
With pallid-appearing hair, like a halo shaken about 

her. 
Calmly acceptant of doom, she stilled all the tumult 

and terror ; 
Men bowed before her, and grew all fearless and brave 

for the future, 
And the women's shrieks were turned to songs of jubi- 
lant voices. 
So, surrounded by people she stood, but her eyes looked 

beyond them. 
Meeting Don Spirito's glance, that mated her own iu 

its splendor, 
Daring, and joy, like an eagle that clangs iu air to its 

fellow. 
Out she extended her hand. He drew her to him, 

and gladly. 
Under the horrible roll of the storm, they stood there 

together. 



142 DON SPIBITO. 

Momently slackened the rain, and blasts of thunder, 
decaying, 

One by one seemed to die, at last from the horizon 
fading. 

Past, too, that trumpeted cry from the zenith : and rain- 
washed and ruddy, 

Day dawned, uplifting the hills, no angel tracks on 
their summits. 

But into Spirito's heart all the gods of the storm had 
descended ; 

Air was diviner, and earth was more splendid, because 
of the maiden. 

Who from his side sought release, blushed red, now their 
vigil was ended. 

Back to their common life went the villagers, leaving 
alone there. 

Silent, those two in the street; till a cry from a high- 
placed portal 

Shook her out of his arms, as the wind shakes a Inrd 
from the branches : 

"Felicite!" cried out the voice, and "Felicite!" answeitd 
the echoes, 

Sounding in Spirito's heart " Felicite !" ever and ever. 



lY. 

A NEW PHRYNE. 

In Melgarajo palace, in La Paz, 

Daylight was mocked as in a mirroring glass. 

Poised in the air, a filmy miracle, 

A sunset done in stone, and durable, 

All rainbow's hues were in the fabric built: 

For the plain panels of the walls were gilt ; 

Elaborate entablatures of stone 

Were traced with rulings of vermillion ; 

Large balconies, like banners, flaunted fair, 

And down the frontage to the summer air. 

Column on column paled, or glowed intense; 

While terraces and gardens, flowering dense. 

Breathed au illusive life to the whole dream. 



144 BON SPIRITO. 

Built midway of that structure's ruddy gleam, 
With separate court aud entrances, there rose 
A chamber, sombre mid those pictured shows 
Black were its walls, and black the marble shafts 
That tempered unto Summer its own drafts; 
Black were its portal figures, sunk in drowse. 
'Twas Melgarajo's secret pleasure-house. 
Where, fled his capital, he could live at ease, 
Far from his victims aud his enemies. 

But something sacred shrined he in that niche, 
Some stately presence breathed there : music rich 
Made melancholy audience of the stars ; 
Sometimes a face looked through the portal bars. 
Sometimes plumed, airy voyageurs visitant 
Shot from the casement, with their wings a siant. 
Glittering and weighted with some graved gem : 
The which, alas! no one could read for them. 

Now, with the clank of arms and clash of spurs. 

Came Melgarajo with his officers 

Unto the palace. Straightway did ensue 

Dismissal of his motley retinue. 

Who, lingering here and there about the stairs, 

Discussed of camp quarrels or love affairs. 



DON SPIPdTO. ■ 145 

But the Dictator, like an ardent boy 

Come to the centre bower of all love's joy, 

Mounted to that black shrine, and through the door, 

Its glorious light and gold interior. 

Windowed, and taking alms from every air, 

Yet curtained so that coolness harbored there, 

Entered. Before him, in that glowing niche, 

The single sombre figure mid the rich, 

O'erwrought adornment of her prison-room, 

A lady rose, who, with still darkening gloom, 

Met Melgarajo's greeting, sidewise turned 

From his embraces, Avho, so coldly spurned. 

Sank down in indolent amenities. 

Swung hammock-wise, to see, with half-shut eyes, 

His prize, with panting breast and burning cheek, 

Pace up and down the room, too jjroud to speak. 

And, like a lolling tiger-cat, to play 

With her strained, baffled, hopeless misery. 

Outside there was a lazy stir of life 
And clank of swords. Sudden a wordy strife 
Reached to that cool interior, shrouded deep ; 
And like a trump blown at some castle keep, 
A voice rang thrillingly : " Cowards, you taint 
With lies the honor of a starry saint, 
Felicite Lflanos ! — infamies — 



146 • DON SPIRIT 0. 

Not Melgarajo dare say otherwise." 
The tyrant roused himself. "What, ho! there speaks 
My poet soldier of the rosy cheeks, 
Spirito: What, was he your love, my fair?" 
He laughed, but the dilating womau there 
Turned on him. " Fiend, Bolivia hates my name. 
Evilly consorted with your evil flime, 
Bat one heart yet is left me. He, my youth, 
All that of innocence I had or truth ; 
My poet, my brave honest gentleman, 
Believes me, and I triumph o'er earth's ban. 
In his large heart ; you dare not me betray." 
Roughly the soldier answered her : " Away, 
• Hide yourself then. Ho, there, Don Spirito !" 
Quick as a door re-echoes to a blow, 
Headlong x\\) the wide stairway, sprang the youth, 
With wild, disheveled hair and foaming mouth. 
And desperate horror in his cloudy eyes, 
Capable of liglitniug. So, in threatening guise, 
Dangerously on each other gazed the two. — 
But for Felicite, what could she do? 
How save her lover from that taloned wrath, 
Turn him aside out of 'the tiger's path, 
Save him and die? An inspiration came. 
Dyeing her pallid beauty with rich shame, 
Making her heart pale in its citadel. 



DON SPIBITO. 147 

There was no other hope, ah well, ah well ! 

Before a word was spoke, to Spirito, 

She must reveal her fall, how far, how low. 

And her last honor lose ; she must, she must ! 

Hastily from her form her robe she thrust, 

New, nude, and like a dawn inevitable. 

Riseu on a horizon of stormy hell. 

To those astonished, dumb antagonists. 

She floated, like a moon from out its mists 

Drunk with the wind and its audacious soul. 

From her slim ankles, to the aureole 

Of sunlight-shifting hair upon her head, 

All gold or diamond she gleamed, instead 

Of ivory or marble-seeming flesh ; — 

Gold limbs eunetted in a golden mesh ; — 

So, with deep eyes, that only seemed to see, 

She stood, dishonor's one divinity. 

Before those soldiers. Then, as twilight's bar, 

Licks up the blazing image of a star. 

Grey pallor wrapt her statue, to efface 

Her naked and most absolute dream of grace, 

And, with one shudder, sank she to the floor. 

Get aid, O, Melgarajo, guards, before 

Spirito's blood flows to his veins again ! 

Bare your sword, cry for help. In vain, in vain, 

Direct, swift, single is the stroke that falls, 



143 BON SPIBITO. 

And Melgarajo dies in his own halls. 

Too late, the throng peers in with wondering glance, 

Half fear, half joy at its deliverance, 

Where, like a dreadful angel none dares touch, 

Spirito leaned o'er her he loved so much. 

Deaf to the clamoring shouts without, that grace 

Him for Dictator in the dead one's place. 



V. 

A GAME OF CHESS. 

Morning in La Paz's plaza, and the sunlight newly 

gilds 
All the night-dissolved masses, man together heaps and 

builds, 
Newly moulds those mortal figures that through twilight 

flit or pray. 
Till a rich procession seem they, jovial citizens by 

day. 
Bruit of drum, and blare of trumpet, sound of voice, 

and stir of feet, 
Growing, pausing or receding, floods with life that 

morning street : 
As the sinuous-moving, crested, many-colored ocean snakes 



150 DON SPIRITO. 

Coil and climb up oa the beaches, flowing so the city 

wakes. 
All save the Dictator's palace. Like a torch in day- 

liglit burned, 
Ghastly all its frontage flickers, festival to ruin turned. 
And, who passeS; smiles up grimly, " at his orgies there 

so late, 
Don Spirito's glory jiales before a light more passion- 
ate." 
Not a soldier guards the palace; dim and silent fronts 

it there. 
Girdled by the burnt-out rockets, dead wreaths dropped 

upon the stair. 
Underneath, like di-y leaves fluttered, whirled or heaped 

up by the wind. 
Round the palace, myriad clustered, moved the people 

with one mind : 
Priest and Indian, muleteer, soldier, mingled, melted to 

and fro. 
Like the foam wreaths still dissolving, keeping still 

their carved show. 
One thought swayed the whole confusion, one word 

breathed throughout it all. 
" What new danger works Spirito, for the state or 

capital ? 



DON SPIRIT 0. 151 

Tunis he some old stately convent to a merry pleasure- 
house, 

Gay caparisoned, and suited for his comrades' brave 
carouse ? 

Wanders he at night, alone, through shadowed street or 
inn. 

Brawling sworder, seeking fight, and rousing sleepers 
with his din? 

Brigand of his owa republic, stops he in some mount- 
ain pass 

Ingot-laden merchants, tithing all their wealth to buy a 
mass ? 

Or, descried by some wild muleteer, dances he in some 
far place, 

Naked, with nude girls around him, drunk and lyrical 
with grace ? 

Or in nightly revel sunken, here amid the city's charms. 

Blare of trumpet, bruit of music, sound of homage, 
clash of arms, 

Dignity and state deserts he, bidding all the business 

SO 
To his great and wise lieutenant, honest Don Onorio ; — 
Who compelled to lead the revels, urged to riot, thus 

and thus. 
Steals some hours for state and business, some brief time 

to talk with us. 



152 DON SPIRITO. 

Ah ! Onorio loves us truly, but the times are vexed 

aud sad, 
"Wronged the people are, aud surely is the ^reat Dicta- 
tor mad." 
Murmuring so, about the plaza tossed and grew the 

populace. 
Words at first and dark looks only, knives, then, 

gleaming in thut place. 
Sudden, on a pillared platform, overhung the palace 

stairs, 
Don Spirit© faced the daylight, flaunting in his courtly 

airs : 
With a festive rose-wreath crowned that flushed back 

from his eyes, 
Not an omen of distress in face, or supple mien or 

guise. 
Out he gazed upon the plaza, thickening to a tumult 

now. 
*' Ho, a game of chess," he shouted — " who will play 

me ; Pastor, thou ?" 
From his retinue sprang out, then, clashing sword and 

jingling spur. 
Blushing eagerly, Don Pastor, boy and page and 

officer. 
In the balcony embrasure, shadowed from the beating 

light 



DON SPIRITO. 153 

Sat they, watched by eyes sinister, placed their pieces, 

'gan the fight; 
And while, under, tossed and dashed, a turbulence of 

angry men 
Don Spirito checked, and Pastor studied moves of how 

and when — 
Plain they sat before the people, half their escort stolen 

away, 
Don Spirito gazing level, Pastor wrapped in thought of 

play. 
Down the plaza dashed two soldiers, horses wheeling, 

sabres out, 
" Don Ouorio," cried they shrilly, and the crowd took 

up the shout : 
O'er the throng a Padre rising, waved a cross upon the 

air, 
*' Death to the Dictator," cried he, " Don Onorio bids 

us dare." 
Still in statued silence, smiling, Don Spirito's curbed 

glance 
Mildly triumphed over Pastor's chess-disturbed counte- 
nance. 
Ho! the throng below increasing — for a moment back- 
ward whirled. 
Gathers volume, eddying so, then up against the house 

is hurled. 



154 DON SPIRITO. 

lu the balcony uatended, lonely there those players 

sit; 
Servants, officers, attendants, shadowy through the pillars 

flit: 
Slowly up the palace steps, rises the tumult and the 

press, 
Ever welling upward and withdrawn, as a wave balances. 
Then Spirito, with slow motion, mates the boy — with 

word of love — 
Who, from out his dream arises, wakes to feel, to see, 

and move. 
Wakes to see those savage figures climbing to his mas- 
ter's feet, 
See the human tide encroaching, 'gainst the palace 

portals beat. 
Wakes to draw his sword and strive Spirito's form to 

sheathe, 
Wakes to hear the myriad laughter shuddering up from 

underneath. 
" Don Onorio de Ayola," — so a thousand throats pealed 

forth, — 
"Come our leader, come Dictator, crush this painted, 

fluttering moth." 
Then Don Spirito upsprang, and backward rolled a 

little space. 



BON SFIRITO. 155 

All the tumult, awed a mojuent by the look upon his 

face ; 
And as one swift gesture made he, ope were flung the 

palace doors. 
And the palace steps descending, downward flung, a 

grisly corse. 
Grim with gaping wounds and bloody, mantled in a 

crimson shroud 
Don Onorio de Ayola came, the leader to the crowd. 
Blew a deadly-meaning trumpet, and the tramp of armed 

men 
Rose above the wild disorder — musketry pealed forth, 

and then 
Silence fell on street and plaza, silence on the palace 

court, 
Where, in statue-stillness placed, Spirito sat plunged iu 

thou^rht. 



VI. 

IN EXILE. 

Midway Madeira, or ere it has won 

Half its course to its master Amazon, 

A ruin of rocks impedes it. The first pass 

Lets the stream through a sheer, steep, slope of glass 

Headlong, but holding the sky's film and lace, 

As a bride holds a veil up from her face : 

At next descent the veil is dropped, and shrouds 

The river in a wreath of foam and clouds, 

And flashing spray in silver fixity ; 

Lastly the river widens, but to be 

In eddies and smooth, treacherous pools confused. 

With here and there a liue of foam, that, loosed 

To tumble through the dark, coiled currents, seems 



DON SPIBITO. Vol 

Like daylight wandering on into our dreams. 

At the last rapid's foot the banks contract, 

Fit setting for the river's pastoral act ; 

Pinnacled and ledged rocks there imminent 

Their brows, moss metamorphosed, have o'erbent, 

Unto the flattery of the river's smiles : 

Through and beyond them, rise the trees' hoar piles, 

Older than heaven, to air original. 

The pilasters of some since-shattered hall 

Of gods; between whose naked trunks erect, 

Swaying solidities of vines, effect 

A wall-like frontage for the stream ; , scarce there 

The crane gets footing, and in upper air. 

Eagles for harborage haunt that forest edge, 

Turned backward from its o'ergrown, thick-set hedge. 

There on an overreaching rock's last jut, 

Half-slipping off of land, a little hut. 

Palm-thatched, palm-hid, arises. In the door 

Upcast, a shell to echo ocean's roar, 

To ]nurmur of the rapid's final notes 

Music in answer, a man backward floats, 

From a rude fashioning of pierced reeds he plays : 

While dancing as to devious roundelays. 

Some lithe-limbed children race in wildest zest, — 

'Tis a wild fisher family and their guest. 

The mighty-moulded father, rapturous 



153 DON SPIRITO. 

Leans on his fisli-spear listening ; eager, thus, ^ 

Lips parted, eyes intent, an Indian girl, 

Half breaking from her sheath, like a great pearl, 

Upon the player gazes from the earth ; 

And he, large gesturing in his joy and mirth. 

Stands careless and unkempt, and clad in tags: 

A monarch's tinsel on a beggar's rags, 

Persistent in his woodland 2)astoral. 

But -what this player, whence his sudden tail 

So to life's common elements returned? 

Lo! when his music faltered, and well-earned 

Ptest sought he, and- the palm-trees' shady boon. 

Out where the wallowing clouds of afternoon 

Ridged hollows on the river's surface wore, 

A boat shot downward, turned, and touched the shore. 

The mighty-chested paddles, leaping out, 

Drew the canoe up dry ; when, with a shout. 

And gaudy triumph in his glowing eyes, — 

Passages wide-gated for a soul's emprise, — 

A boy sprang up the bank, and humbly there 

Knelt by that tatter-trembling traveler. 

"Victory, Seiior, the day is yours again! 
Six provinces declare for you : they reign 
In the capital but for Don Spirito." 



DON SPIRITO. 159 

Languidly came the answer : " Wortl of woe ! 

You bring bad tidings and good fellowsliip, 

Don Pastor ; you commend to me to sip 

The cup of memory I did forego — 

I had forgot I was Don Spirito : 

Forget it, too. Come, play upon these reeds; 

Make tolerable music, not poor deeds. 

From the employment of great offices 

I am forever separate. Action is 

A dream's unreal and hollow pageantry. 

I am grown poor and real. Wilt thou be 

A wanderer with me in this savage haunt, 

To the huge giants of nature visitant? 

Many gifts can I promise you : much good, 

A thousand different fevers of the wood, 

As many hungers, and an imminent death 

Scarce ever parted from you by a breath. 

Poised like a statue in a little boat. 

You shall spear fishes, or forever float 

Down undetermined reaches of rich streams, 

Naked, but certain, in a world of dreams. 

And we will beg our way with melody. 

Go ! get some rags, and come and live with me." 

So mocked he, moving not. That gracious boy. 

In misery and most perplexed annoy. 

With eyes like setting planets, "weak and dim, 



160 DON SPIRITO. 

Washed Spirito's hand with tears; then turned from him, 

And calling to his boatmen, soon he was 

A figure of sunset on the watery glass. 

But scarcely did Don Spirito see him go, 

Plunged into meditation and strange woe. 

He took his dedicated pipes again. 

And played all eve a faint and troubled strain, 

While his pied garments, fluttering, of him made 

A motley spectre iu that forest glade. 



YII. 

THE PKOUD HIDALGO. 

A-RIOT for half the day with the rush of its sea-maned 

steeds, 
And quiet for half the day with the pictures of clouds 

in its reeds ; 

In the harbor the forests stir, the trample of winds in 

the street : 
City of tumult. Para, where Atlantic and Amazon 

meet ; 

City of color, as though a sunset had dropped on the 

beach. 
Or a rosary snapped in two, and the beads fallen each 

upon each. 



162 DON SPIBITO. 

Red rise its towers at morn, and an anger of light from 

them gleams, 
White and hushed they lie at night, like the sculpture 

of dreams. 

Vivid and light is its air, but beneath is the fierceness 

of life, 
And the convent bells haunt repose, vpith an echo of 

old strife. 

Its markets are spread on the streets, or float and dance 

on the wave. 
Or by white-clad negresses borne on their heads along 

the pave. 

And ever from palace roof, or from church door look- 
ing down, 

Perched in their black-plumed suits, sit the vulture- 
guards of the town. 

'Tis the feast of the Nazareth now, and the rockets 

blare at midday. 
And the hundred-tongued bells of the town in their 

belfrys rock and sway. 

And down through the painted streets, through the 
rain-swept ways of Para, 



DON SPIRITO. 1G3 

Comes a procession of priests, with their saint ia a 
carved car. 

The Lady of Nazareth she, whoso looks on her and 

believes 
Cured of his hurt goes on and cured of the thought 

that grieves. 

Children ran on before, like the dimples inwrought in a 

wave. 
And a white-haired Padre, upreared like a foam-crest, 

after them drave. 

Like a white cloud followed the nuns, and ever the air 

round them grew 
Virginal, fresh, again as at touch of the twilight 

dew. 

Oil through bazaar and court, or through high, palm- 
arched arcades, 
Flashing on harbor quay or in far suburban glades, 

Passed all morning that host, till as ever they wound 
and went 

In the poorest quarter they paused at a tumbling tene- 
ment : — 



161 DON SPIRITO. 

Paused, for a cry leaped therefrom, thick, huddling, and 

horrible, 
As though one voice of despair had beggared the 

throats of hell. 

And the Padre entered therein. In the darkness a 

figure there 
Rose, making the barren place more dread with his 

desperate air ; 

Broken in feature and mien, in the dusk of the room 

he stood, 
With the lithe and horrible grace of some native thing 

of the wood. 

A summoned smile on his lips did their pallid edges 

blur, 
As though a stone were rolled to the mouth of a 

sepulchre : 

With a royal gesture he bowed to the press of forms 

at the door : — 
" Enter, Seuores, be pleased, and my house is mine no 

more." 

'' Ho, Pedro ! Ho, Pablo ! serve your masters, bring them 
wine!" 



DON SPIRITO. 165 

And he motioned into the dusk. But the Padre made 
no sign. 

Then, more courteous still he grew. " Ah, Senores, well 

yon happed 
On ray house for your festival : you will find me young 

and apt, 

And my gardens are rich in bloom, and beyond those 

statued stairs, 
The gods that lure and betray have set for us their 

snares ; 

The gleam of rich-served food and the crystal light of 

wine 
Wait, and the glamour of eyes and the glow of limbs 

divine. 

Soft! hear ye not those lutes from the columned far 
recess, 

Betray the disguise of love in the air's voluptuous- 
ness?" 

Then the Padre answered stern ; "Are you mad, here 

all alone?" 
"Alone!" from the old man's face; life-faded, he seemed 

as stone. 



166 DON SPIRITO. 

Then tlie greyness gradual broke, and his look a morn- 

iag had, 
Aud he answered : "Alone ! with her, the wild, the sweet, 

the glad, 

The gold-haired goddess of girls, the dainty Felicite!" 
He ceased ; but her name, like a prayer, on his thin 
lips murmuring lay. 

"Through these chambers, on these stairs, forever, by 
day or night, 

Like a shuttle, to and fro, she passes, weaving de- 
light; 

She and her husband. El Rey : their golden, bright 

young shapes. 
In chase and capture toss on, and a tumult of escapes. 

In the garden, veiled with leaves, they would play at 

seek and miss, 
But their lips cannot part so far as to disentangle the 

kiss. 

What! I alone, whom their children forever seek and 
implore? — 



DON SPIRITO. 167 

That stately, sweet young rogue, the mischief-prince 
Pastor, 

Six, and his sister of four, the knee-climbiug IS^ar- 

cisse ! — 
Hush, you prattling babes ; will you never be at 

peace ?" 

With happy, wandering fingers out-stretched to touch 

and bless. 
The old man leaned for a space o'er the c|uivenng 

emptiness ; 

But, as he moved, he drew a sheet from a neighboring 

bed: 
Horror! a maiden thereon lay, peaceful, and white, and 

dead ! 

With virginal lips and breasts, she lay on the couch 

supine. 
Lifted o'er fever and hunger and suddenly made divine. 

"F^licite!" at the sight the old man sank there and 
moaned, 

As if despair in that word poured its language, echo- 
toned. 



168 DON SPIBITO. 

Till his guest, with a timid step, from that tragic vision 

turned ; 
Then he rose to his feet, and said, while his eyes like 

planets burned : 

"I pray you, pardon my grief, my daughter is sick 

to-day : 
I am Hidalgo, Sefior, — and the children are out ""at 

play." 



VERONA'S DOVES. 



On a May morning, through the dewy air, 

From Verona Angelice did fare, 

Over the sloping grass and yellow gleam. 

The shifting pathway of the sun's fresh beam. 

One of those shapes she seemed, without a blur ; 

A vision of Olympus, lovelier, 

Since all her fellows of the airy crew, 

Frighted and flying the religions new, 

Left her to wander in the flowery glades. 

Alone, unrivaled by her sister shades ; 

Small was her head ; her tresses unconfined 

Betrayed the secret kisses of the Avind ; 

Her flower-like face drooped dainty, as with dew; 



170 VERONA'S DOVES. 

And underneath, her breasts like lilies blew; 
Below her girdle, low her garment fell, 
But left to sight her ankle's golden swell; 
But left to sight her naked feet, that trod 
To music and the flu tings of some god. 

Way there was none before her as she went. 
But tangled flowers and grass together blent; 
And the wind-fretted foliage overhead 
Shadowy confusion on the vexed sward shed. 
But still Angelice, with steady look, 
Followed two guides, that threaded every nook: 
Two snowy doves, that rose, in radiant lines, 
Like the blown incense from two rival shrines. 
Till sudden from the sunny wood she passed, 
And the sky widened in her brain at last; 
'Twas an oak-guarded glade, and seemed to be 
A crystal circle girt with ebony, 
Where she could set her feet on the array 
Of passionate herbage from the heart of May. 
There to her ears a wandering strife was blown 
Of horn, hounds, echoes in confusion; 
And presently a boar, with hunted rush. 
Slid deep into, and shook the underbrush. 
So near her, that her garments flapped withal; 
And ere her heart could reck the interval. 



VERONA'S DOVES. 171 

A surge of dogs aud horses followed fleet, 

Scent-led, and sweeping to her very feet. 

O, how the swollen air then seemed to glow 

With life aud color, vibrating below 

The faded jjageant of the exiled noon. 

Till, as a wave long following the moon. 

Heaped aud heaped higher, unto foam is blown 

Unhesitating action overthrown ; 

So at the slim-wrought image of that girl 

Checked, the whole forward rush began to whirl 

Upon itself, the while euringing her. 

Each decked as he were Summer's messenger, 

Those gaudy riders, in their bud of youth, 

With laughing eyes and lips of little truth, 

Doflfed their plumed hats, and in their saddles bent, 

With words made meaningless with merriment. 

Wooing with laughter her to make a choice ; 

Till, over all their noise, there grew a voice. 

Harsher than their soft-syllabling charms. 

Heavy with consonants, that clanged .like arms; 

And suddenly Angelice beheld 

A statue, whose imperious gesture quelled 

All fear, all hope, all thought instinct in her, 

Save of that dominant deliverer. 

A massy bulk, a cavernous face obscure. 

Eyes like twin stars, that threaten or ensure; 



172 VERONA'S DOVES. 

A certain j^resence that uo peril stirs, 
Au action swifter than light's messengers ; 
So seemed he to the maiden, as she heard 
The melancholy mockery of his word, 
Grown mournful-serious 'neath its mask of scorn, 
With the desire that from regret is born. 
" Thou May-born miracle, that dost appear, 
The image of the youth of all the year, 
Art thou a goddess truly? Wilt thou come 
And be a sweet religion in my home? 
Thou like a dawn before creation art, 
Unto the void and chaos of my heart. 
O, stay ! I feel ■ it stirring in its place ; 
It is alive enough to know thy grace: 
Wilt thou not longer minister to me 
That present sense of immortality, 
Futureless thought, that makes youth beautiful ?" 
He ended, but the maiden's eyes w^ere dull 
With images of doubt and change and fear, 
And terror at her maiden doom so near. 
Yet in the easiness of the rich South, 
The heart lies perilously near the mouth, 
And what one bids, the other dares to do; 
So half in fright, she yielded up her dew 
Unto the fiery thirst of his fierce lips, 
And mounted with him, soon from sight she slips, 



VERONA'S DOVES. 173 

Heading a serious-seeming cavalcade, 

Following her doves through forest light and shade. 

That sanctuary of the afternoon, 

Orsone's summer palace, saw them soon 

Make riot mid the even-ordered shades 

And personages of its garden glades; 

For glad they rode, loosed from mid-forest gloom. 

On, through its hanging mass of terraced bloom 

And vivid slopes, g^d-bathed, save where, alone, 

The daylight silver of the fountains shone : 

Traces of shadow lay upon the grass, 

But if you looked, there sunlight ever was; 

While the more intricate tissues of the leaves 

Shone like a crystal surface, that receives 

All the sky's colors and its images. 

There, in the midst, a palace of rich pride. 

With loftiest adornment, sweeping wide. 

As if to gather in the gaudy air, 

Was reared a diadem for earth to wear, 

Gold-wrought, or like a sunset's fixed design. 

Color and cloud unto the horizon's line. 

It was a fabric where each wrought fayade 

Surfaces interior to itself displayed. 

And springing masonry, forever new\ 

Perspectives that diminished beyond view 



174 VERONA'S DOVES. 

Of rich carved, clustered pillars, held aloof, 

The white enchantment of the visioned roof 

Hung over open portals, meant alway 

To harbor Summer in one holiday, 

Not broken by each serious-sweetened night. 

Although of marble were the columns white, 

Wandering in reiterated rows, 

Touches of Morn seemed on them to disclose 

An efforescence of continual hues, 

The foliage of their slim-wrought avenues, 

While tbe more patient, lazy afternoons. 

Wrought themselves into various festoons 

Upon the walls, or on the marble floor. 

Infinite mosaic and enamel wore. 

What invocation might Orsone choose 
To wake this palace for his sweet one's use? 
Thrice at the centre portal's statued slair, 
*' Prosper," he cried : echoes enriched the air. 
Implicate answer and announcement blown. 
And mid those carved multitudes of stone. 
Upon the topmost stair, a radiant shape 
Floated, as if half doubtful to escape. 
Then stooped, as though to w^elcome them were sent. 
Some vivid painting of a star's descent. 
Poetry's reign is over, we are told, 



VEEONA'S DOVES. 175 

But beauty is earth's business as of old, 
And what else record have wg of the bloom 
And glory of those figures, that illume 
Life's comfortable, sober leaved book ? 
I know not otherwhere for art to look, 
To tell of that rich shape, that entered was, 
Into the sunlight as a rival grace, 
More deadly blinding to Angelice. 
He was a boy, but what his years might be 
One could not guess, more than of a young god ; 
Beauty had fixed him to no period, 
A forced humility was in his act, 
Else the sky's image iu him was intact. 
Faltering he came, as Morning half-aglow. 
Scarce disentangled from her bed-fellow, 
Leans o'er her eastern couch ere she leaps out, 
Naked, to new embraces. So iu doubt. 
The morning-moulded Prosper, with curbed pride. 
Knelt ou the marble at Orsone's side. 
While through his lithe limbs and his springy hair, 
A golden anger blushed and faded there. 
And a heart-swelling impulse came and went. 
Heightening his port beyond his mind's intent. 
But carelessly Orsone gave connnand, 
" Prosper, my horse, feed him, and here at hand 
Keep vigil with the stars before the house!" 



176 VERONA'S DOVES. 

Then, to that tender image of a spouse, 

Angelice, he turned, and from her seat 

Lifted her down, and helped her Ligging feet 

Up the h)ug, easy stairway, till o'erhead 

And each way intricate, the marble spread. 

But for Angelice what could she deem, 

Gone as a guest into that builded dream. 

Leaving reality and love behind. 

Ay love ! for in one moment in her mind. 

The instant apparition of that boy 

Wrought all the old world-infinite annoy, 

That has vexed grey-beards since the world began. 

She did not hope. No passion through her ran. 

Even in her heart she held him small and far. 

The mirrored shape of a removed star; 

Yet he had dulled all atmospheres to her, 

And given to Summer a perj)etual blur. 

Made music the interpreter of death, 

And all Orsone's palace seem a breath, 

And he a sometime-shadow she had seenj 

AVhat could she do, therefore, but backward lean 

To where her eyes had married that one form, 

And ask the sunlight to again grow warm. 

In vain, the pageant was interior 

To all but her — and on her steps they bore 

Inward, until Orsoue to her called 



VERONA'S DOVES. 177 

Some ladies, and the corridor, smooth-walled, 

Opened, as if to niche one so divine 

With incense, adoration and a shrine. 

Subject to deftest fingers, there she grew 

Full-orbed to fill earth with enchantment new; 

For so they clothed her, with such rich attire 

Heightened her all-obliterating fire. 

That she, a very woman in her heart, 

Efl^aced her woe to make complete the art. 

Her trailing garment full of changes was. 

And seemed like a surface of blown grass. 

Her jewels sharpened or grew soft again, 

Just as the face above them did ordain, 

Her rose-buds took her triumph or her taint; — 

Never was holy-day had such a saint 

As she, out-sweeping to the hushed throng, 

And to Orsone ; who, above her, long 

The alternating touches of her face. 

Grave-eyed, o'er glanced : last unto his embrace 

He took her; — then, save music filled the air. 

And that torch-light obtruded everywhere. 

And that her doves would hunger in their room. 

And that the banished horror of a tomb, 

Were better than this joy — she knew no more; 

Till on a dais, in the middle floor 

She woke unto the homage of the crowd : 



178 VEBONA'S DOVES. 

Then, a swift-realiziug terror bowed 
Her head, and with mute motion she did call 
Her maids, and vanished from that festival ; 
And in her cool and shadow-guarded room 
Shut up her soul, oppressed with many a doom. 

Left to herself, her wandering hands 'gaii feel 
What part of all this pageantry was real. 
She touched her dress, and dimmed with her faint breath 
The jewels fallen from her loosened wreath ; 
She stood at tiptoe at the mirrored shelf, 
And then grew pale and shuddered at herself; 
She oped her casement, when itpon her arm 
And the deep covert of her bosom warm 
* The eager moonbeams, beating for ingress, 

Clustered like birds ; she loosed her silver dress. 
Pleased at her limbs released from such a debt, 
Self-charmed by her own beauty to forget : 
Lastly she drew the curtains from the bed. 
But at its emptiness, a gathering dread 
Grew from her startled figure to her eyes; 
A sacred instinct in her made her wise ; 
And from their perches in the dim alcoves. 
She took the drowsy figures of her doves, 
Gathering their feathered softness to her heart ; 
And, garbed but as she came, turned to depart. 



VERONA'S DOVES. 179 

Her chamber oped upon a platform broad, 
Parted by slender columns from the sward ; 
Sacred to silence, save some echo rude 
Summoned its pillar-clustering brotherhood : 
There at the casement for a space she stood, 
Dreaming herself into the far-off wood ; 
Then outward on the marble floor she stepped. 
Dimming with dying foot-prints, the moon-swept 
Spaces between the pillars, till she came 
Full on the threshold of the silver flame ; 
Then to the balustrade's curved secrecy. 
Shrunk to descend. Ah, wretched, why did she 
Stumble on her undoing? Women have 
Senses like moths that lead them to the grave ! 
Mid shadowy monsters in the moonlight starved, 
Couched only on the marble and not carved. 
Slept Prosper — all his fiery brilliance dulled, 
And all his music-action lost or lulled. 
With eye-averted look, that did engage 
To go no nearer to the sleeping page, 
Yet circling like an eddy still indrawn. 
She paced about, till prudence overborne, 
She sank beside him, and with bubbling laugh, 
Possessing touches, lighter than blown chaff". 
Showered upon him. But the boy still slept. 
And o'er her eagerness a chill-thought crept 



ISO' VERONA'S DOVES. 

Of his bleak morning look, if he should wake 
And know her not. Tears, bitter for love's sake, 
She weeps whose love to emptiness goes forth. 
As though a star should stoop to chase a moth. 
Cold with such thought Angelice had fled. 
Yet stood dejected, undetermined, 
Disparaging herself befoi-e her love : 
Till with soft throes a bosom-warmed dove, 
Stirred in its nest, and caused a dream to start 
Up from love's very chamber in her heart; 
For gently, then, that dove she took and kissed, 
And gently fastened it to Prospcr's wrist; 
She touched his eyelids with her finger-tips, 
And even breathed upon him with her lips ; 
Then, with dim eyes and many-moaned adieu, 
With her one dove she faded from the view. 

Meanwhile about his halls Orsone went. 

Ordering disorder for his soul's content. 

That clomb above the strife of lutes and strings 

With all the potency that passion brings. 

Ah ! what tumultuous thunder round him throngs, 

What passionate gusts of eddying undersongs ; 

Murmurs of love and hate, more numerous 

Than gusts in thin woods, or sea waves thus, 

Wind-liberated from their moonlight swoon. 



VERONA'S DOVES. 181 

Xow a mixed dissonance of tune and tune 

Rose to the ceiled roof, or to the trees, 

Fit for the action of such images, 

As with Orsone flitted here and there, 

Through garden, chamber, or long-echoing stair. 

But the whole madness on Orsone hung. 

Men leaned upon his lips, and maidens sung 

In instant inspiration from his look ; — 

So, when the revel ebbed from each far nook, 

Unto the feast-set and wealth-laden hall. 

And riot broadened upon festival ; 

In the mid-madness of the merriment, 

A momentary gaze on all he bent, 

Then turned, and sudden from their sight was gone. 

Down sank the music in a dying moan. 

And the wine-drowsed revelers, overcome 

Mid silver vessels heaped about like foam. 

Lay on the marble heaving yet in trance. 

Stilled was Orsone's heart, too, as his glance 
The gradual, but far-gathering galleries 
Dimly discerned ; but too dazed were his eyes 
To separate what was bulk and what was gloom. 
So stumbliugly he passed from room to room, 
Glad when some moonlight margin on the floor 
Leveled the pitfalls that he dreamed he saw. 



182 VERONA'S DOVES. 

But his heart beat a louder tune, ancii 
The threshold of his lady's chamber won ; 
He paused a space, to have it o'er repeat 
Infinite assurance of its certain sweet ; ' 
Then from that horizon obscurity- 
Swept like a star into the flooded sky. 

There was a softened charm of warmth and light 

Filling the room up for the soul's delight : 

Such soothing ministers to every sense 

As might persuade tumultuous innocence 

Easily to yield up unto love's embrace. 

Now, with dilated act and even grace, 

Orsone crossed the room, with softest tread, 

To the recessed, rich, curtain-shaded bed. 

With happy eyes he drew the curtain back. 

And gazed thereon. Alas! what vision black 

Blots from each iris its late-painted bloom? 

He turned, he gazed upon the empty room, 

And on the vacant garments on the floor, 

Upheaped by the open casement door. 

His Yips writhed, and his eyes were hon-ible. 

Glinting like sea waves when they roll and swell ; 

Yet he moved not, save that he drew and laid 

Naked upon the bed, a gleaming blade. 

Then, while the suffering moon upon hira thi-ew 



VERONA'S DOVES. 183 

Convulsive torture, while she gradual drew 

Her shallow, rippling vesture from the room, 

While through far-focused portal of the gloom 

Plauet and constellation downward passed, 

In statued silence, like a bulk bronze-cast, 

Darkly he stood ; till far-glimpsed morning shed 

Sombre revealment on his ruined head, 

And woke his limbs to action and unbent 

Plis muscles. From that chamber, then, he went, 

With heavy and unused steps, abroad ; 

Till, ou the farthest platform, hung toward 

The horizon disc, a burnished brightness came 

On his path, parted from that outer flame. 

'Twas Prosper ; one hand shaded his sweet eyes ; 

Perched on the other was his feathered prize. 

Shook at Orsone, in whose eyes, thereat, 

An ominous and armed shadow sat. 

And whose bulk hung o'er Prosper in eclipse, 

Painting with dreud the boy's half-parted lips; 

And ere his morning greeting had begun, 

Shading his eyes forever from the sun : 

For one swift sword-flash leveled with the dew 

His frame aspirant ; and Orsone drew 

From his cold fingers the blood-sprinkled dove, 

And flung it with ferocious force above. 

Then, as it circled on the buoyant air, 



184 VERONA'S DOVES. 

Mounted a horse, that by the palace stair, 

Ready for instant service, ever stood ; 

And as the dove's heart drew it to the wood, 

O'er undescried aerial lineaments, 

Wind-valleyed floors and cloud impediments. 

Followed, more urgent-eager, underneath ; 

Until it showed like a dissolving wreath 

'Gainst the dark foliage of the forest edge. 

Then sank from sight behind that leafy hedge. 

But at its vanishing Orsone heard 

A rapturous motion in that covert stirred. 

And for one moment on his sight did gleam 

That white-armed consummation of love's dream, 

Angelice, swift-fading with a cry, 

A thrilling breath of mortal augury. 

Then, though Orsone trod those thickets through, 

Peering beneath the cobwebs of the dew. 

And pictures of the little forest brook. 

Nothing he saw, save in the air forsook 

Two aimless, eddying doves, in agony 

Dashing their soft breasts against bush and tree- 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS, 



In a wooded hollow deep, 
Far i-etired, a pool does sleep 
Sacredly hidden and forgot, 
Secret of all the forest plot, 
There sunken inward to withdraw 
Earth's figures to another law : 
O'er it foam the flowered woods, 
The air-occupying floods ; 
O'er it the loosed season wakes 
Rich-throated from the thorny brakes ; 
And the rose and white of Spring 
Yield to air their blossoming ; 
But in that valley does intrude 



1S6 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

A twilight-suited multitude 

Of trees, darkly there interred ; 

And each crimson-winged bird 

Dominoed in grey flits by. 

Carpeted by last year's sky, 

The sw'ard sloj^es upward, to assume 

The rock's dominating gloom : 

Oaks and beeches interlace 

Round the pool ; their swaying grace 

Of shadows scoops the water up, 

Like the frame-work of a cup, 

Ebony-embossed, to hold 

The wave's dusky Aveight of gold ; 

Upon whose surface is. allowed 

The fragment of a fragile cloud, 

The moon's thin curve, or, empty kept. 

The space whereon a star has slept. 

Hark ! from the high, circling hills 
Riot overflows, and spills 
Downwai'd the noises of the chase; 
Till the stir in that dim place 
Sends a dusky snow of leaves 
Down upon the water's face. 
Soon the secret wood receives 
A summons more imperative : — 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 187 

Like a moving torch does live 

In among those dai-k-boled trees, 

Hung with leafy tapestries, 

A slim figure, rich arrayed. 

Wavering on from shade to shade. 

Clambering o'er the rocks about, 

With soft hallo and mimic shout. 

To her deep-entranced eyes. 

And her face's flushed, dyes. 

Many a bulk in those old groves 

New-inspired, ^Yakes and moves. 

And the hollow clouded dull 

Of far-flashing gleams is full, 

Lights that lead her to that dim 

Dream-threshold where the branches swim ; 

Till her slender form invades 

Its circle mirror and curved shades, 

Rising like a sudden morn 

Fierly there to forewarn 

All that buried, dark ravine 

Of destinies and days unseen. 

So her glittering eyes and hair, 
Her drowned image debonair, 
Slept perfect in the smoothed wave, 
To which her rippling garment gave 



188 3f ESS AGE OF THE BELLS. 

Depth uuder depth, aud stir of life. 
Her eyes were ■with ruin rife, 
By turns her face did flush or pale, 
Aud her moving lips did fail. 
Ever Avith their weight of words, 
Whose lightest accent, foliage-lost, 
Paid back the mute-attentive birds 

. More than all their music's cost. 
Thus came the lady's eager cry 
Rapt, dream-divulged soliloquy : 

'■Now the April-busied earth 
Wakes to glory an^ to mirth, 
Bud and bird aud billow, all 
Welcome the new festival ; 
But I wonder how they live 
On such slight provocative, 
For the breath of Spring is cold, 
DuJl the heaven's eye of gold, 
Aud each frighted god is rent 
From his region elemeut. 
And the morning comes at most 
As a reappearing ghost, 
While its mighty horses are 
Drowsed by the dream they draw^ 
And its radiant train forgets 
The anemones and violets. 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 189 

Lambs may leap and birds may slug, 

But ]io spirit blossoming 

Wakes within rac with the heat ; 

So to shadows I retreat, 

To shadows and continual eves, 

Where are nursed the hoary leaves : 

And twilight-eyed, I re-create 

Earth's legended, obliterate 

Romances and high, tragic train. 

Some root of magic in my brain 

O'er all abandoned ghosts has power; 

And here in the earth's hid bower. 

Earth's innocent, earth understood, 

I, a lady fair and good. 

Whose large eyes are globed with fire, 

Whose cheeks are hollow with desire, 

Send to earth my subtle cry. 

Framed with magic ecstasy — 

O, mother earth, why hast thou wooed 

My human mother to thy mood? 

Her kisses are asleep in thee ; 

And I am helpless — misery. 

My starved spirit fails and faints. 

Useless are the carved saints 

In the chapel's niches shrined. 

Useless the perfumed wind 



190 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

Making the Virgin's picture stir; 

All my heart is dead to her : 

But thou mystery, thou god, 

Overgrown and overtrod. 

Dented by the Satyr's hoof, 

Wrapped in the cloud's subtle woof, 

Secret and sovereign through all, 

Aid me ! Lo ! my shape does fall 

On the glass in this, thy haunt; 

Take thou the empty visitant, 

Outward sending it, to find 

The love that waits me, distance-blind ! 

A voyager felicitous, 

World-wandering, let it roam ; and thus, 

Like a thistle, onward borne, 

Find some happier horizon." 

Burning an intenser birth 
Than its rival of the earth, 
The pictured shade of Rosalys, 
Blushing with imagined bliss, 
On the mirror pool did float, 
Nearer now, and now remote, 
As with swaying step and arms, 
Waving to its wandering charms, 
Circling the water thrice, she went. 



3IESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 191 

Fair the image rose and fell, 

A life-inspired nuracle, 

On the coiled sheet of flame. 

Strange hues and motion to it came ; 

As the pool did bubble bright 

With serpent and streaked lines of light, 

As the depths glowed an angry red. 

Or the waves, curved, blue faceted, 

Or stagnant with a .slime of gold 

(Like an eye in that dim wold), 

The treacherous water worked and seethed ; 

But mid all the colors wreathed, 

Like a glowing snake that heaves 

From a bed of Autumn leaves. 

Still the shadow of the girl 

Rose out of the fiery whirl ; 

Rounded more and made complete 

As the bubbling colors meet 

Blent for the creation there; 

But the sister form in air. 

The true Rosalys, grew dim. 

Paling on the water's rim. 

Fading, as beneath her rose 

That magic and wave-margined gloss. 

Whose fervent eyes, whose haunting face, 

Disnatured her of half her grace. 



192 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

From the winding hills aloft 

Faltered a bugle's echo soft, 

And for a space, wild-eyed, alarmed, 

Shrinking from the water charmed. 

Half the maiden turned to go, 

So the magic to undo: 

But to her filming eyes the wood 

Its intricate eclipse renewed, 

And her lips did breathe a prayer. 

Then her glittering figure there. 

Swooning backward, slow did sink. 

Cold on the cold water's brink. 

Lo ! as she fell, a shuddering fear 
Brooded in that dim atmosphere. 
And a wild laugh, bubbling, made 
Blacker that . very haunt of shade. 
Poised o'er the pool, like some rich moth 
From a petaled flower issuing forth, 
The vision of the shadow rose 
From its fiery natal throes. 
Scarce could the maid have recognized 
The floating shape, there undisguised ; 
Her secret self to hei'self unknown, 
Likeness unlike on the pool it shone, 
Freed from her virgin limbs' control, 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 193 

It rose in air, a naked soul, 
Emptily by the sun arrayed. 
Or in the purple garb of shade, 
With floating eyes and flaunting hair. 
The underdream of every air. 
Maiden, demure, was Rosalys — 
Wild equal of the world's heart, this, 
That, picture-like, a moment hung 
The blossoms and the boughs among. 
That stirred there like a little gale. 
Then lived no more within that vale. 

On the wind the dream was borne, 

A presence in the midmost noon, 

A jiower on the passioned night. 

Fields and towns below its flight 

Rose and vanished, till at last 

A city's busy gates it passed. 

There the swallows, in the eaves 

Building, babbled ; there, with leaves. 

Gossamer-thin, the Aveb of Spring, 

Floated o'er man's fashioning ; 

There through the crowded lanes did push. 

With birds' flight in the underbrush, 

That errant vision virginal, 

Moviug with echoless footfall. 



194 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

Hurried strangely, pausing oft 

At some voice's echo soft, 

In and out the city's ways ; 

Earnest busied, wandered it ; 

Veiled in air its eyes did blaze 

But no answering eyes were lit 

With splendor where it went and came. 

An old Abbey's sculptured flame, 

Windowed and wandered o'er with broods, 

Marble transfigured multitudes, 

Lured it to a portal hall 

Where many passed to confessional. 

Dusky in that dim alcove, 

Shaded by a saint above, 

On the threshold's lowest stair 

Knelt the pictured image there ; 

And like a taper, burning well. 

At the altar-shrine adorable. 

Breath-blown by every acolyte, 

Waited it, or dim or bright, 

As by it passed in or out. 

Knight or Abbe, clerk or lout. 

O, strange to see it lingering. 

So wonderful, so rich a thing, 

Begging love with lovely look 

From all who passed its dusky nook. 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 195 

Love gives no alms but itself in fee, 
Choice 'tis not, but necessity ; 
Useless prayer or beseeching morn 
As the priests appeal to the idol stone ; 
Vain all charm or magic rite. 
Save to one alone in all time's flight ; 
Aidless thus to that message shape. 
The day's thronged hours did escape. 
But next morn at a palace gate, 
Saw the vision still imjiortunate. 
Glorious garbed, a shape of gold, 
Like a rose-tree risen from the mould, 
Burdened with rich airs and hues, 
Queen of Summer's avenues. 
All day down the palace stair. 
Prince and courtier passed it there ; 
Smiling, frowning, all the same 
Unobservant ; gallants came, 
Plunged in love, but unaware 
Of the kisses lingering in the air. 
But the third day did the dream 
Mingle in the peopled stream — 
Gleaming thro' the crowded streets 
Like the last wave that repeats 
The sunset's gold, and so does slip 
Through ocean's greyer fellowship. 



196 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

Reckless grown and ruddy dyed, 
Tossed it oii the human tide, 
Wantonly abandoned thus 
To desire solicitous ; 
There as it floated void of joy, 
Near it rang a loud annoy, 
A suddea brawling tavern din — 
Turned the shape and glided in 
Through the dusky tavern door. 
To its warm gloom. Upon the floor. 
Gold and dice was flung about ; 
Two brawlers, with their rapiers out, 
Struggled above ; a slender girl 
Was somehow caught into the whirl. 
But as the vision o'er them burned, 
One of the duelists upturned 
His eyes and knew its shadowy grace. 
Down rang his sword in that dark jilace, 
AVith the one wrested from his foe. 
"What dost thou mean, Joyeux, Joyeux, 
Staring so at the raftered roof? 
Why dost thou tij)toe so aloof, 
Gliding and beckoning to the door: — 
Help, ho ! he sinks unto the floor. 
Lit and gone out, what aureole 
Pilled the dark passage of his soul?" 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 197 

Sorrow reigned in Isle de France. 

Three days the lady lay in trance; 

In state, on her purple bed, 

Lay she, silver-garmented ; 

A lily beaten down with rain, 

Streaked with the grasses' stain. 

Through that echoing-aisled chateaux. 

Muffled steps passed to and fro; 

From the dusky stairs did come 

Softened wail and voiceless hum ; 

But no stir jDierced where she slept: 

The thick, deadening hangings kept 

Out the noises from beneath, 

And her mastiff's gleaming teeth 

From the threshold warned the din. 

Alone by Rosalys within, 

Old interjDrctrcss of death. 

Her nurse hung, with hour breath, 

O'er the dewy-beaded lips, 

The translucent, thin eclipse 

Of eyelid and rose-exiled cheek. 

Thrice in that room a priest did speak 

His midnight-intoned nocturn. 

And an incense lamp did burn, 

Even lit for night or day. 

Yet, though the lady ghost-like la}, 



198 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

She knew, as knows the lily pod, 

Its trance-interred period. 

Suddenly the torpor ceased, 

From marble were her limbs released, 

Her eyes unclosed, with all their new 

Infinite distances of blue; 

Back to her face the myriad hues 

Thronged in their veined aveuues : 

Flowing like a crested wave 

lucomiug to an empty cave, 

With scent and colors infinite 

Of morning aud the ocean's might. 

Life with one shock flowed unto her. 

In that chamber was no stir 

Of the outer April's prime. 

Earth's fi-esh coronation time; 

But from the lips of Rosalys, 

Bending up her nurse to kiss. 

Breathed a thymy odor there 

Of flowering woods aud naked air: 

Then, as one who all at once 

A rich-flashing garment dons. 

Uprose she, painted with the stain 

Of beauty and of life again. 

Rose, too, a stir of rich carouse 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 199 

Through that shadow-suited house; 

Festival from funeral 

Filled it with a jocund brawl ; 

Guests and servitors moved light, 

In exuberant delight; 

And thronging through the portal doors 

To those dark interiors, 

All the village came and went, 

With joyous look and compliment; 

And the stony street without 

Echoed to a gathering rout, 

Neighbors, suitors, from afar. 

Greeting their new-risen star. 

From the kitchens then withal, 

Odors sacrificial 

Rose of feast ; and wine and glee 

Honored abundantly 

Her who gleamed there warm, instead 

Of chambering with the coiled dead. ' 

Light, aniid the gay arrests 
Of her suitors and her guests, 
Taking homage from them all, 
Rosalys moved through her hail. . 
Many a gallant-suited youth 
Silent grew from very truth, 



200 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

Bowiug there, with swelling heart 
To her twiu lips, blown apart 
Like a rose that ready is 
For the sun's perfecting kiss. 
Melodious-motioned, moved she so. 
Ever with the sweetest show 
Of kindness and unwearied grace: 
But the daylight ebbed apace, 
And the cresset lamps in line, 
And the firelight's slanting shine 
The bronze dusk emblazoning, 
Wrought her to another thing, 
Faded half her splendid dyes. 
Washed out the passion of her eyes, 
Till they gleamed like two dim stars 
In a lapse of twilight wars. 
So, to an embrasured seat. 
Curtained, caseraented retreat, 
Slow* she glided, unobserved ; 
And her figure, roundly curved, 
Just beyond the room's lit rings, 
Gold and gold embodyings, 
Like a dream within a dream, 
Plunging thought to thought's extreme. 
Waited. Soon the lights decayed 
And the guests reluctant said 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 201 

Drowsy farewells, each to each ; 
Parting step and parting speech 
From the pillared entries came; 
Laughter's echoing jiroclaim 
Burst a space ; then in the street 
Died the numerous retreat. 
Emergent from her dusk retire, 
White rose Rosalys — The fire 
Scarce the pictu red-roof made stir, 
Wreathed with god and warrior ; 
Some shapes of silver or of glass, 
Lent lustre to the room's dark mass, 
Wherein shadowy monsters ramped ; 
Through the panes, the moon encamped 
In tented show upon the floor. 
Landscapes in that interior 
Mountainous or abysmal rose, 
The room stirred with laboring throes, 
And the silence was alive, 
As though eddying ghosts did strive, 
With noiseless rustle in the dark : 
Echoed the watch-dog's dream-foroed bark, 
And creaking of the portal lamp. 
In its brazen, antique clamp. 

Prisoned there no more stood she: 



202 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

Swift aud unhesitatiugly, 
Down pillar-wiudiug stairs she passed 
To the portal gate, huge cast, 
But lightly by her fingers oped. 
Like a ch)ud from heaven eloped, 
In moonlight stood she aud made moan, 
Bending o'er the barrier stone. 
"What have I done? — ray form, my face, 
Is distant from me now in space ; 
These very words I speak are born 
Under some foreign horizon ; 
Far hence in some dim alcove, 
They murmur unto him I love ; 
These limbs that clad me for a boast, 
Echo themselves to clothe a ghost. 
He knows me not — although I know, 
Graved on my heart, his name, Joyeux ; 
And though to him my kisses force 
Through air their far-permitted course, 
Flying afar to find his mouth, 
Like swallows envious of the South ; 
And though my wanton soul can take 
A secret joy for love's sweet sake, 
Yet I, in this white body shrined. 
To cold virginity confined, 
Burn for the touches of my mate. 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 203 

By unknown leagues kept separate." 

CharmM worker of a charm, 
To lier, the chill moonlight was warm, 
The sun-remembering balustrade 
Whereon she leaned, no colder made 
Her virginal, uncinctured breasts. 
O'er her, from their marble nests, 
The myriad, lintel-keeping doves 
Fluttered in emblazoned loves. 
In the moonlight, sweeping dim, 
Afar her palace front did swim ; 
And below her, onward stretched 
The village street, with houses etched 
Flat against the misty sky : 
Nearer her garden wall swept by, 
With its maple barrier hedged. 
Whose blooms are the earliest fledged, 
And whose easy-shed blood hath 
Precedence on April's path : 
Thereby rose a chapel quaint, 
Flowering in many a statued saint, 
O'er whose shadow-haunting roof, 
A belfry hung in air aloof 
O happiness! O hope of bliss 
A flush dyes the cheek of Rosalys! 



204 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

The bells sleeping silent there, 

Kegents of else unconquered air, 

Lords of echo, ruling still. 

Genii of forest and of hill ; 

Ringing ever thro' the year, 

Easter fast or Christmas cheer ; 

Martyrdoms and triumphs sage, 

Echoing on from age to age; 

These their folded notes for her, 

Iron-shut, must set astir, 

Till with burden of her hope, 

Wandering thro' heaven's cope. 

Like a rain that backward flows 

To the spring from which it rose ; 

Like a bird thro' all air's dome, 

Faltering on to find its home, 

Harbor they within his breast, 

"Who fevered her to such unrest. 

Ah! from those stairs the maideu broke. 

The moon flung its silver cloak 

"Under the passage of her feet. 

As she glided thro' the street, 

And the iron-grating door did bruit. 

Where shadows knelt at the chapel's foot. 

And Rosalys' white form was made 

The soul of that holy bulk of shade. 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 205 

Joyeux in his chamber sits, 

Watching the wasting ember-fits, 

As the fire's rapt confidence 

Loosens to him, the immense 

Mosaic, memory-pictured hoard 

Of visions in the oak logs stored. 

But his eyes with vacant lapse. 

Scarcely heed the flames' mishaps, 

Climaxes, and storied art ; — 

Looking inward to his heart. 

Through the earth and through the year, 

He had wandered far and near, 

Student of many a mystery. 

Whereby man might hope to see 

Happiness a mortal growth ; 

Of the black arts nothing loth, 

Wrought he gold from metals dull. 

Or the elixir wonderful 

Drop by drop did distillate. 

Or a soul sought to create 

For a white frame he had made. 

Backward spelled words he said, 

To call up the horned elf: 

'Twas murmured he had sold himself 

For a lease of wealth and lust ! 

But his gold had turned to dust;- 



206 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

Hopelessly unimpassioned, 
From his lemaus he had fled, 
Seeking but surcease of thought 
In the changing woodland sport 
Banquet riot, or street brawl. 
But desire and j)assioi), all 
Hopes of youth, together came 
Now anew into his frame ; 
And that vision he had seen 
Between his eyes did intervene, 
And the world else unillumed. 
Born from air to air resumed, 
Inviolable to pursuit. 
Floating eloquently mute, 
Ever by his side it rose: 
"Wrought out of the firelight glows, 
Or central shadow of the gloom 
An empty passion in that room 
Airily does it enact. 
But the youth is hot for act : — 
To his feet he springs, and tears 
From his hat the plume it bears, 
And his casement opes, and out 
Flings the feather. "Chance devout, 
Falls it south or falls it north, 
That way will I follow forth. 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 207 

Follow till I win my love." 

But as he stood there, from above, 

As from heaven the holy tones 

Of angels in their orisons, 

Falling down unto him floats 

The noise of myriad bells, whose notes, 

Softened by space, with echoes blent, 

Pealed as if distantly violent. 

In summons to his ear alone. 

Moonlight charmed to painted stone. 

Outward to the night he leaned, 

Pause nor silence intervened ; 

Prodigal of music, still the bells, 

In interlaced and married swells, 

Fill the holy spaced air. 

But Joyeux awakens there. 

Turns, and catching up his sword, 

Cloakless, hatless, down toward 

The portal entrance of his house 

Quick descends he. There in drowse, 

Sprawling on the stair below, 

By his half-burnt-out flambeau. 

Lies his page ; a horse beside 

Waits patient for the homeward ride. 

The bridle from the boy's wrist torn, 

Joyeux mounts the steed and on 



208 MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 

Makes its hoofs ring iu the street. 
Loud above, the bells repeat 
Invitation in the air, 
And the horse and rider fare 
Like an arrow flying straight 
To those sounds, that lie iu wait 
At every turning, though at times 
Seek they to disguise their chimes, 
As a girl, secure of joy, 
Does delude and does decoy. 
Sometimes so, they fail aud faint 
In some fretted abbey quaint ; 
Sometimes sink they iu wooded lands. 
But if at fault the rider standi^, 
Straight they rise and in advance, 
In the right path, leap aud dance, 
Through the earth and o'er its rim, 
Leading Joyeux with their hymn. 
But the reddening morning soon 
Stills their faint, mysterious tune: 
And at their death the rider sees 
Villagers by two's and three's. 
Dressed for merriment, throng down 
To a blossom-buried town : 
Thick grows the crowding festival 
In the street. The people all 



MESSAGE OF THE BELLS. 209 

Bow and doff their hats as past 

Rides Joyeux. Before him, vast 

Looms a palace portal front, 

On whose stairs, in joyous wont, 

Wait a gorgeous plumed crowd. 

Murmuring, wondering, cheering loud, 

As he halts, dismounts, and is 

Mastered by assured bliss. 

For bright blazoned to all eyes, 

Gently and with no surprise, 

From the doorway's shadowed part, 

Comes the vision of his heart ; — 

The long desired, the long delayed, 

Love's promised but more perfect maid : 

Who, as he kneels before her grace, 

Stoops to his her rosy face, 

Yielding to him in one kiss 

The body and soul of Rosalys. • 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 



Three leagues to sea the castle rose. 
The never-harvested sea-sward, 
Moon and mist managed, did enclose 
Its cirque of towers broad. 

The thin, green edges of the foam 
Met o'er the silver stretch of sand, 
That inward from the bulk did come 
And linked it to the land. 

So, builded like a sunset's wreath, 

In resurrection of decay. 

The castle stood, and underneath 

The tumbling waves did play. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 211 

Sea-weed was lodged in niche uud crag, 
Grey lichens covered half the wall, 
And, clustering into many a flag, 
Red trailers shook o'er all. 

Great stairways, ruinously proud. 
Ceased in air half-way to the sun ; 
The court-yard fountains, disallowed, 
Wavedi'owued, ceased to run. 

The roofless hall took each gold star 
Nightly to be its mid-most guest, 
It welcomed each cloud wanderer 
Into its haunt of rest. 

There, twice a day, the ocean went 
Murmuring thro' all the corridors, 
And smoothed and equaled each ascent 
Of those slime-bedded floors. 

Ever upon the banquet-hall 
Great silver flagons lay about ; 
And gold wine-cups ; the sea filled all, 
Then noiselessly ebbed out. 



212 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

Like some huge serpent writhing thro' 
A breathless but uncoffined form, 
Ami'd the tapestries waves grew 

And shook their painted storm ; 

Or, as a youth, who o'er him sees 
The imperious image of his sweet, 
Clasps foot and knee, and by degrees. 
Climbs to her golden seat, — 

So clomb the sea; and pomp possessed, 
Or emptied all, the castle stood ; 
In floated the imperial west, 

The moon ebbed in a flood. 

Like a god's favor, that is rife 
With ruin and immortality. 
The sea's touch shook those towers to life. 
Fresh, glittering and free. 

O, alchemy that can efface 
The taint of most abhorred things! 
; O live, wild breath blown in the place 

That was the haunt of kings! 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 2U 

What sceptered races here had birth? 
What trumpets thro' these courts were blown ? 
What issuing armies made the earth 
Utter protesting moan ? 

What marriage blazon ? what events 
Of painted pageants lit this gloom ? 
What seiges and what tournaments 
Threatened the air for room? 

Ah ! no more now those war-worn shapes, 
King, baron, minstrel here are met, 
To tell of battles and escapes, 
About the banquet set. 

Feasting did end their hour of fame, 
Sudden their eyes shut in eclipse. 
And, 'stead of wine, the water came . 
Unto their thirsty lips ; 

When, settling to the ocean floods. 
The castle's fabric downward weighed, 
And the foam in wild interludes, 
Over those warriors played. 



214 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

! when the entered waves outswept. 
What floating statues gilt it gay, 
A human tide, that onward kept, 
Unto the springs of day; 

And the sea was the castle's heir: 
But when its billows back returned, 
And halted at the turret stair. 

One shape yet o'er them burne 

A child, set o'er their curled rings. 
Fearless of the great, fondling sea, — 
Sole issue of a line of kings. 
Knowing no ancestry. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 215 

A FRAME of magic fixed secure, 
Ere the moon's web is on air's dome; 
A whiteness where no clouds endure ; 
■ A wreath above the foam : 

Her feet did kiss those stairways wet, 
Frank looked her outward-painted eyes, 
The ocean in her face was set, 

Fresh with .its first surprise. 

Lone! years alone! yet air did breathe 
Memorial language to her lips, 
And her whole eager world did seethe 
With full companionships. 

As the waves issued from her halls 
The sunlight glowed on coats of mail ; 
And in her courts, processionals 
Of navied clouds did sail. 

And the moon, full, or unobserved, 
The thin delight of daylight skies. 
Dogged her dream ever, with its curved 
Servile obeisances. 



216 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

And the great stars that watched apart 
That triumphed or were dispossessed, 
Trembled together on her heart 
In passionate unrest. 

Like rushing warriors they rose, 
They reigned like golden crowned kings. 
They sank ; — but her calm heart did close 
Over their visionings. 

But most the shifting-surfaced waves. 
Washed riches to her from afar, 
White-flowering coral from deep cayes, 
And fatal spoils of war. 

Sea-weed and waifs from some old land, 
Wreckage of fleets the world forgets. 
Intricate sea-shells, full of bland. 
Echoing epithets. 

Now was the crested ocean led 
From room to room her feet to chase, 
And now a silver glass it spread, 
Under her silver face. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 217 

Now, lover-like, the sea did flute 
Distance divine into her sleep, 
And now, in sullen seige, did bruit 
Terror thro' all that keep. 

Kinged by such shapes of night and day, 
Wooed by the wordless gods of life, 
What wonder that her breast did sway 
With elemental strife. 



Sweet is the herald day, and smooth 
The contour of the courier air. 
The prophet dreams of maiden youth, 
Sent Love's path to prepare. 



218 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

She trembled at a cloud's light gloom 
Questioued the motion of the breeze, 
Her virgin heart knew its own doom, 
Instinct in images. 

She saw a glimpse of golden hair, 

Gold limbs, where yet no youth has trod ; 

The voices of the wind declai-e 

The imperious claiming god. 

In sleep she spread her arras abroad : 
Troubled from troubled rest, emerged 
Her shadowed eyes, that bent toward 
The faint waves farthest urged. 

Now, like a bather from the brine, 
Uppushing rose those towers erect. 
Dripping with robes of thin design, 
Silver and pearl bedecked. 

And far unto the burning east, 
A path clove on of yellow sand, 
Thro' the sea's crests by it increased, 
And linked the towers to land. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 219 

All ! maideu, guard the sacred torch, 
That faints or flushes iu thy brow ; 
Ah ! eager watcher in the porch, 
Th)'' love rides to thee now. 

Eemote so long, so long retired, 
On the far beach he came to view, 
His presence the dull ocean fired. 
And made the world anew. 

He came, as though the night should brood 
And loose to heaven some sunny boon ; 
As though some subtle planet should 
Cheat its white guards of noon. 

Cleft like a narrow harvest swath, 
O'ernodded by the plumes of wheat. 
From the shore the wet causeway path 
Came to the castle's feet. 

Distantly there that glorious shape. 
White-plumed, white-suited, held his course, 
And the surf's onset and escape. 
Shifted beneath his horse. 



220 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

On his approach the maiden hung, 
Through windowed turrets glancing fair. 
Then downward to the court-yard flung. 
And the last sea-left stair. 

With eager steps that seemed to sing 
She came, all starved to caress. 
With beating bosom, issuing 

From her light, silver dress. 

Thro' the vast, broken gates he rode. 
Sole to that shadow-thronged resort, 
The daylight in his white garb glowed, 
Flaring in that dim court. 

Up by his bridle rose the maid : 
Her eyes seethed like a magic spring. 
In inarticulate words, she said 
Articulate passioning. 

He lighted down, she glided on, 
To her veiled look he dofied his plumes, 
Following up gloomy stairs, sea-worn. 
Draped with the ocean blooms. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 221 

She led him to a banquet-hall, 
She sat him on a golden throne ; 
Graceful, august, imperial, 

Her race within her shone. 

A wine-cup, thrilling to the touch, 
From carved figures cool and slim, 
She gave unto his grateful clutch. 
And laughing, drank to him. 

Full royal looked he in his seat. 
White-clad, with ribbons fluttering. 
And in her heart with echo sweet 

She called him the white king. 

She brought him fish, with silk-nets snai-ed. 
Berries that grew on toppling heights. 
Where the sweet peril she had shared 
With wild bird opposites. 

But whea the sea, to that hall come. 
Pushed at the footstool of her lord. 
She led him to her airy home, 

Up winding stairways broad. 



222 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

Chill in the slumber of her room, 
The moonbeams crept unto her bed ; — 
Stayed at the threshold, in the gloom 
A wild fear flushed her red ; 

Fading, her splendor ebbed a space, 
Errant from eyes enamored, 
Then glowed again, as with slow grace, 
Inward, her love she led. 



Woe to the life that climbs to bliss ! 
Day's rounding pomp does end its power, 
The passion of his own death is 
The sun-god's lordliest hour. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 223 

From her cold sleep the lady woke; — 
Agaiu the abandoned air she sees; 
Empty of life the morning broke, 
Empty the following seas. 

Lost from her arms her lord was gone, 
Her visioued and accepted spouse: 
Vague, dream-deserted and forlorn, 

She wandered thro' the house. 

To her the portents of the tides, 
The flowing skies that change and turn, 
Seemed but the figures on the sides 
Of some revolving urn ; 

Wherein the ashes were interred 
Of hope, of passion, of desire ; 
Of instincts and of dreams, that stirred 
Within her frame of fire. 

But soon her eyes grew clear agaiu, 
Ecstasies to her lips were wiled, 
A rosy sky, her face's stain. 

Lingered above her child. 



224 BALLAD OF THE WHITE lUNG. 

Moulded by her god-liauuted dreams, 
The boy grew blithe and fair to see, 
Flushed over with ethereal gleams, 
Eveu in infancy. 

From the lithe waves in those old halls, 
He took their smoothness and their joy, 
And the sea-ebbed intervals 

Yielded him many a toy. 

With cup, with sword, with viol, strown 
About the long, abandoned floor, 
He played at state, set on a throne 
With her for servitor. 

She leaned upon his knees, and breathed 
Royalty to his gesturing. 
Red coral round his brows she wreathed, 
Crowning him as a king. 

With words that touched his thought like fire, 
She set a blazon in his mind ; 
Painting the splendor of his sire. 
Matchless, immortal, shrined ; 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 225 

A moment to her arms released, 
Then, to his heaven again resumed, 
God of the myriad-moulding east, 

By his own might consumed. 

Brown-colored by the wind's disguise. 
Unfolding to his prime of youth, 
So grew the boy— with dreamy eyes. 
Haughtily full of truth. 

The east did lure him with its power: 
Till, last his mother gave him arms, 
And saw him issue from that bower, 
Into the world's aiiums. 



226 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

An avatar, a warrior j^riest ; 
He rose amid the tribes that lie 
In the far twilight-filmed east, 
Their own antiquity. 

From dreams of empires dead in stone 
The Persian herdsman he awoke. 
And on the Himalayan zone 

His shattering trumpet broke. 

Mortal no more, implicit god. 
He plunged into the thick of fight; 
And patient hordes, whose period 
Of life was void of light, 

Roused by the shock of his great deeds. 
Thundered with him and won the earth, 
Parceled for pasture of their steeds, 
Down to the ocean's girth. 

Beneath their horses' hoofs were stamped 
Kingdoms: their tents did wander on. 
Clouds that were never twice encamped 
Within one horizon. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 227 

But he who shook the world in arms, 
That warrior youth, grew wan and pale. 
His battle harness lost its charms, 
His trumpets seemed to fail. 

Lo in his shadowy tent he lay, 
Couched upon a tiger's skin ; 
A dance of maidens moved away. 
Vague music wandered in. 

With wayward laughter by his bed, 

White-clad, his Jester sat, and made 

A mock of fame, and urged instead 

Wine that had ne'er betrayed. 

Without, in pauses of the games, 

Low Sufi voices did intone 

The homage of his myriad names. 

That o'er the world were blown : 

"Heir of sunrise, the god of light, 
Dream of the world at last made tru^ 
Invulnerable lord of fight, 

King of night's retinue," — 



228 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

Sceptre and sword together crashed 
From the youth's couch, as down he sprang, 
Back his attendants shrank, abashed, 
As his wild cry out-rang. 

Thro' their souls thrilled the fierce appeal, 
Desperate and infinitely sad ; — 
Alone before the king did kneel 

That fluttering Fool, white-clad. — 

" My Fool, thou hearest on every side 
Homage and prayer blown all about. 
Thou only dost my power deride, 
And I — alas, I doubt. 

"Sad- versed in human lore, thou mak'st 
Immortal issues bow to -thee. 
No song to the sun-god thou wak'st, 
Hymning necessity. 

"And I, whose conquering confidence, 
A thunderbolt thro' earth was sent, 
Take from the stars no evidence 
Of my god-sprung descent. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 229 

Go, Jester, bid my hordes prepare 
Westward like moou-ruled waves to flow, 
Back where ray mother makes the air 
Holier, I humbly go." 



The crowded years and airs were made 
Blank passages to expectancy, 
Where, finger-like, the castle's shade 
Moved o'er the dial sea. 

The vision of a breaking heart, 
Its lady loomed with hollow cheeks 
O'er time's unpi-ofitable art 

Of changing hours and weeks. 



230 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

The ocean fooled her with its guile, 
Then, blabbing with remorse, crept thro' 
Each iterant and resurging aisle 
And castle avenue. 

Plumed and war-cloaked the waves were sent; 
The eastward Eden of sunrise, 
Daily a fiery armament 

Yielded unto her eyes. 

Oft on the castle's walled verge. 

She leaned and looked unto the land, 

Where the sea's shifting hills did merge 

Into the hills of sand. 

Ebbed backward and obliterate. 
Oft the whole scene did fade from view, 
And, dream-endowed and passionate, 
Her world arose anew. 

Blazoned with pomp her courts did ring, 
Her stairways fluttered with disguise 
Of forms and feces, that did spring 
To light the dusk with eye^. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 231 

Oft, fervently before her knelt 
Her son and his triumphal train, 
Oft, bliuded, saw she not, but felt 
Her lover's arras again. 

Dreams! they were dreams and must depart, 
Ever they lessened and grew dim, 
And the sea flowed into her heart, 
With its dark-plungiug rim. 

But no! she woke. The courts were thronged; 
Pennons and banners hung in air, 
Trumpeted clamor, hundred-tongued. 
Vibrated, rising there; 

Till died in echoes their alarms. 
And from the circling shapes of war, 
Sole image of the earth in arms. 
Her son rose like a star; 

Clad in such guise as earth does yield 
To answer the conceit of kings, 
As conquerors known, as gods revealed, 
Unto man's worshipings. 



232 BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 

Buoyant he came and blithely glad, 
To where his mother, worn with days, 
Lifted eyes, wild and myriad-mad, 
And her impassioned face. 

Low at her feet he bowed, and there 
The splendor of his crown did place, 
But her hand trembled in his hair. 
And wilder grew her face. 

"My boy, who is it — who is this 

Who tracks thy footstep up the stair?" 
"Madam, the man my Jester is. 

White-plumed, like some bird rare." 

Shrilled her cry like an arrow's flight. 
" O fool, it is thy father come. 
Loosed from his fiery cirque of night, 
Lost from his sunrise home." 

Down from that throne the boy's form slipped, 
Under his mother's eager feet, 
' Who, flaming-eyed and dewy-lipped. 
Her brideo-room rose to meet. 



BALLAD OF THE WHITE KING. 233 

In her fair arms she drew and strained 
The Jester's solemn-visaged face, 
And wild, sweet kisses on it rained, 
With large, imperial grace. 

" The fervent fastness of my breast, 
Again, again does thee enriug; 
Thou ridest no more to east or west, \ 
Thou mighty-statued king." 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 



In Venice, rich from freightage of his ships 
That beat Genoaward or to Joppa's wall, 

Ser Pollio dwelt; and there in close eclipse 
Shadowed the beauty of sweet Floreal, 

Until the Springtide blossoming at her lips 
'Gan to make question of her prison thrall, 

Until she grew to know her beauty's might, 

Lessening Elysium of its chief delight. 

Implicit Summer masking in March air, 

Day's only spouse yet in the dusk withdrawn, 

A harmony unbreathed to mortal ear. 

Lost like the lark, heaven's climbing minioij ;— 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 235 

Alas, what gods out of our lives we spare! 

What torched days light on oblivion ! 
How many gorgeous sunsets burn, to give 
Glory to faces that are fugitive! 

Yet troublous thought did seldom busy her, 
Blooming in shade in bright abandonment ; 

Glad of such life as made the curtains stir, 
If singing thro' the corridors she went ; 

And if the noises of the city were 

Allied to wake her to some discontent, 

Outward she looked on Venice, to her eyes 

Populous with her song's realities. 

Recluse above its constellated air, 

Usherer of deeper splendors tho' more dim, 

From her tower leaned she o'er the watei-y square, 
Last haunt of foam upon the ocean's rim, 

And underneath the wealth of Venice there 
Gondola-wise upon the waves did swim. 

To her heart ominous like those shapes that pass 

In blazonry upon a witch's glass. 

Her days and dreams unto her entered in 
Together, tinted by her casement's glows, 



236 BANQUET OF DEATH. 

Till, on one eve, as Carnival did win 
Redoubled action on the night's repose, 

Balanced she stood above the sway and din, 
Bartering for blushes with a Provence rose. 

And let her glances fall below. Ah, soon 

Slipped her flower, too, to that gold-flushed lagoon. 

Its little blot of color on the tide 

Washed out in ripples a wave-imaged face. 

Motionless pictured on the mirror slide ; 

Washed out this shade but put diviner grace 

Into the look of Count Ughelli's pride. 

The young Roman, poised on that watery place, 

Duskly secure amid its crowded gleams. 

In the indifierent armory of dreams. 

The flariug light of torches round him flung 

Pierced not the shades that did his soul immerse. 

Upon his lips a murmuring spell was hung, 
Some nameless necromancy Avrought in verse; 

His inward-brooding eyes that throng among 
Deeds of old days and empires did rehearse. 

His limbs within some haunt oracular. 

Nakedly with the Naiads swam afar. 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 237 

The thousand figures of a thousand days 

Rose or died to him on those flushed lagoons; 

Morn was proccssioual on those ocean ways, 

And bloomed and withered like fair rose festoons, 

Palaces on his path. His soul delays. 
Amid the action of far other noons, 

Surf-isled among the Cyclades to sway. 

Or o'er the hanging blooms of Nineveh. 

But at the star-like passage of that x^ose, 

Released he woke, and startled, looked above 

To see what heaven to loose it did unclose; 
There palpitant upon her barred alcove, 

As Morning, unpremeditated, glows, 

A Saint made human by her eyes of love, 

Floreal looked down. Into each other's heart 

They wandered — whence no outlet to depart. 

Only a moment Floreal did lift 

Her eyes' dim portals for her love's advance, 
Then, as a stag from out a leaping drift 

Of hounds glides sidewise, from his sight did glance 
And blotted so the daylight's single rift: 

Awhile Roman awaited there in trance, 
Then homeward wended, flushed with feverish glee. 
Lord of a new world by discovery. 



238 • BANQUET OF DEATH. 

Thro' the long night the jailer hours did pass, 
One by one opening their successive gates, 

But ere the greedy Morning could amass 

Wealth from his love's lips, by her tower he waits ; 

At Vesper, as at Matin, still he was 

Constant : the following days no zeal abates, 

Fixed like a statue by her palace stairs. 

Commended to a caryatid's cares. 

Hermit of love, sweet Floreal, shrinking, hid 
Her worship in the desert of her bower, 

Blushing, as watched, her garments she undid. 
Till deep in secrets of love's fostering power, 

Strange grew she her familiar scenes amid ; 

Unleashed, she struggled outward from her tower; 

Haunting her balcony, she did correct 

The soulless carvings of the architect. 

Sweet fools, their eyes each other held in chase, 

For adoration only and not love ; 
Themselves they cheated, but too plain the case. 

The merry gondoliers made songs thereof. 
And their two sires, drawn thither, watched apace 

The passion that so profitably throve 
To please them. So Ser Pollio, spectacled, 
And falcon-faced Ughelli them beheld. 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 239 

Can men be happy, having once been mad ? 

Doubtless, some hour, all equal to desire 
These old men in their lease of years had had, 

Some poet moment impassioned and afire. 
Who now of the unladen days were glad. 

And dragging at the heels of hours that tire ; 
One busy in his stag-haunted retreats ; 
The other, with his Ledger and his fleets. 

But now their kissing goblets made conceive 

Softest emotion in the soul of each ; 
Galleried they sat ; and from their dusky cave, 

Watched their two actors stage them within reach : 
Quick-purposed Pollio a plot did weave, 

And thus the business set abroach in speech : 
"How marvelous love should not fall amiss, 
But circumstance and inclination kiss. 

Count, let us hazard here no chance delay, 

Lest currents and cross winds blow us athwart! 

Any to-morrow is a holy day. 

If that the garlands it to deck are brought; 

So in the morning, ere the air be gay. 

Let these two lured birds be limed and caught; 

But hark! no word to either of its mate, 

Let them for one night be disconsolate. 



240 BANQUET OF DEATH. 

Else may their liking that now shows so well, 
Turn to distaste at prize too lightly won, 

And to confusion bring this miracle, 
That two should love as by direction. 

Go you, and your young springald briefly tell. 
His bride comes Veniceward at blush of morn; 

While Floreal, for a doom I will prepare, 

Blown like my ships from a remoter air." 

So wrought they bias mid the threads of fate. 

Well pleased, the Count Ughelli homeward went. 
Dreaming of gilded hours and new estate, 

And deer-filled forests won with fair content. 
Enamored of the air, and high elate, 

Roman soon followed, at the night's descent. 
Purposing no sleep he came, but such retire. 
As might yield up in dreams his heart's desire. 

An absent homage to his sire he made. 
Then turned imnmred in his mused doom, 

But on his sidewise cheek a sentence played, 

Like a winged thief that robs a flower of bloom ; 

Carelessly brief, the Count Ughelli said : 
" Roman, your richest garmentiugs assume, 

Out of Ravenna unto Venice, is 

Borne you a bride. To-morrow sees your bliss." 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 241 

Pierced like a falcon on its poise of sport, 
Motionless stood the boy a moment's space, 

Keeping his winged action, statue-wrought, 
His golden color and enameled grace ; 

Then with the agony at once o'erfraught, 
Headlong he fell upon that marble place : 

Smiling above him Count Ughelli bent, 

Took from his belt its knife — and from him went. 

When he awoke chill dews were on the floor, 
The window blanks were starry charactered. 

Whose livid tracery to his fancy bore 
Some un remembered message to be read ; 

Sudden, their fiery points this sentence wore, 
" To-morrow, aye to-morrow, thou must wed." 

Rigid his form grew to his locked teeth, 

And his hands fumbled at his empty sheath. 

But soon love's rosy tide imperial, 

Floated death's vision from his ardent side. 

He rose, resolved, and from that dusky hall. 
Glided to where his gondola did hide : 

Star-strewn, as for a torched funeral. 

The watery streets before him opened wide. 

Whereon he wound in light or in eclipse, 

Like some keen pilot mid his foeman's ships. 



242 BANQUET OF DEATH. 

But sudden to him rose the palace front, 

The prison of his soul and his saint's shrine; 

But ah ! wierd altered from its sober wont, 
Populous with lights in shifting mass or line, 

That rose and ebbed, like some torch-flaring hunt, 
Leaf-raufiled thro' the wooded Apennine : 

Serpents of flame confusedly did wreathe 

Thro' the whole fabric, or hissed underneath. 

Bulks of black ships before the entrance were, 
And busy men brought from each treasure hold 

Bales of rich stuffs shook out unto the air. 
Wrought images of silver or of gold, 

Earth's treasuries to the ocean's added there, 
And provender and liquors manifold ; — 

Wealth of all realms that front the wandering seas, 

Gathered as for an Emperor's caprice. 

Within, the arched halls diverged in bloom, 
Like some full-laden floweiy forest scene ; 

The banquet-tables glittered in one room, 
Lengthening with mirrors was another seen ; 

Gardens made gracious with a new perfume. 
Mid the more artful work did intervene ; 

Magic was there — such charm as thought allows 

The night the genii built Aladdin's house. 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 243 

Unknown amid the thronging servitors, 

Roman did list the note of festival 
Redoubled still by new divulging doors, 

Till his heart beat again and banished all ; 
Then up the swerving stairs without a pause, 

Noiseless his feet upon the stone did fall, 
And his heart climbed before him to those airs 
Where love's one star held dawnings unawares. 

But as his feet on the last landing-place. 
Rang louder to his high imperious heart, 

The darkness disengaging into grace, 

A bodied motion on his path did start ; — 

Floreal it was, whose white, bewildered face 
Looked downward into his with lips apart, 

Who shrined above the sumjstuous-moving crowd, 

Watched like a pictured angel from her cloud. 

Clad all iu black, like an in-curved wave 
That bears aloft the eternal carved foam. 

She rose. Her hands au eager welcome gave 
Gesturing with full bestowal, to become 

Servile to the oppression they did crave, 
Seeking to add their portion to his sum. 

Who bowed before her feet and upon them 

Pressed his first' kisses thro' the garment's hem. 



244 BANQUET OF DEATH. 

Unnamed, unknown, love's high prerogative 

Made them the intimates of unmeasured days; 

In his dark hair her gleaming hands did live 
Like dewy buds within a poet's bays ; 

Up her slim form his kisses climbed, to give 
The signet wonder of all certainties 

Firm on her mouth. She yielded up her arms 

Unto his kisses, and her bosom's cluirms. 

But suddenly a summons from below, 
From such accord and practice amiable. 

Shook them. With backward beckoning did she go 
And his uncertain footing guided well 

Thro' many barred wards, that parted so 
Into the secret of her citadel. 

As tho' a rose should open, fold by fold, 

Petal by petal to its heart of gold. 

Dimly a silver lamp there shed such light 
As tho' the moon had gone into a trance. 

Wild, wreathed figures, on the roof alight, 
Were new-appareled for mysterious dance. 

And on the hangings, more were poised for flight 
In vivid pallor and vague radiance. 

It seemed a chamber sunk beneath the sea, 

Unearthly, lit for magic .revelry. 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 245 

Lone-wrapped in its wave-filtered glory stood 
Floreal, and gazed upon that ardent boy; 

Out of her face ebbed the imperious blood ; 
Out of his eyes followed the amorous joy; 

Strange words, like moans, that haunt a hollow wood 
Far from the front of June, she did employ — 

"Sweet friend, thy voice, thy touch is strong to save, 

But thou hast happened on a vowed grave. 

A little while I did forget my grief. 

But echo is against delusion armed, 
Thou hearest the din of festival in brief, 

That does devote my youth, to the unwarmed 
Couches of festering earth and mouldering leaf, 

O! be thou, as my spirit is, alarmed 
At thought of my soon-fleshless limbs to be, 
And out of this unholy prison flee. 

For know my father purposes to wed 

Me on the morrow to some clerk of his, 

But on the morrow, safe will I be fled, 
Even from the dreaming of another bliss : 

O friend, thou risest god-like and most dread, 
Yet art thou not so beautiful as this — 

This little, leaden vial, that holds the vast 

Secret that links to-morrow with the past. 



246 BANQUET OF DEATH. 

Farewell, O love. I may not be thy wife, 
Yet when some other, sweeter maiden, won 

Shall gently enter into all thy life. 

Think thou sometimes of the departed one, 

Tho' all thy moments with new joy be rife, 
And I shall know in far obliviou." 

So said she, and the poison would have quaffed, ' 

But the boy caught her hand and stayed the draught. 

Equally wrought with horror and desire, 

And thick suggestions of his thronging brain, 

His face grew pale, his eyes did flake with fire, 
And hollowly his voice thus made complain : 

" O, must thou go alone to thy retire, 
And wing forever the Elysian plain ? 

Wait thou! this hour is ours at least, and then 

Together will we leave earth's narrow den. 

O let this poison be our marriage feast, 

Our subtle and inspired music's breath, 
Our choir, our triumph-train, our vow, our priest, 

— What better than all solemnizing Death ? . 

Come, O sweet potion, and thou joy, increased 

In glory as the twilight hasteneth, 
Precious the moments that we have to spend. 
Ere our great love and the great world does end." 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 247 

In fiery alteration in her cheek, 

A sudden bloom wrought out a slow decay, 

Her eyes gleamed brightly but she did not speak. 
But from her lover turned a space away, 

And in a little alcove did she seek 

Gates and rich fruits that there were wont to stay, 

Wine, glowing thro' a silver-crusted flask, 

And jellied treasures of some summer task. 

Upon a table did she set the store. 

Then drew her lover to half-couched repose, 

Sinking herself upon the marble floor. 

Leaning upon his knees and gathered close. 

Few words did pass, but kisses more and more ; 
Forgot a hundred times were all their woes, 

Or if fate threatened them with aspect dread; 

Safe in the wine they saw Medusa's head. 

At last the boy the leaden vial raised. 

And in two goblets, wine flushed to the brim, 

Emptied their portions, evenly appraised. 

Quick Floreal took her glass and drank to him. 

And he, no loiterer, a moment gazed 

Upon the air — then quaffed the liquor grim : 

Up by his side, Floreal arose erect. 

And all her beauty to his gaze undecked. 



248 BANQUET OF DEATH. 

Down to her feet her sober garment slid, 
Revealed she rose, enchanted, but unflushed, 

And all her hoarded chastity so hid 

Suddenly in her lover's arms was crushed : 

The golden frame-work of her hair amid, 

Upon his breast her face a moment blushed. 

And her sad, happy eyes in his essayed, 

Surrender, unreluctant, unafraid. 

Fragments of beauty on the world's last edge 
They stood, and saw beyond the foamless blue 

To wing whose distances they were afledge; — 
Their very kisses said, adieu, adieu ; 

Eternity spoke in each amorous pledge ; 
Their lineaments took on a marble hue; 

It was as if from fate they won, to do 

As the immortals may, an hour or two. 

O sombre and unutterable love! 

The poisonous dew was yet uj^on their lips, 
The passionate fire that in their veins did move, 

Was of oblivion, was of the eclipse; 
Each haunted face was light as from above, 

And dark with shadow of the Furies' whips: 
Splendid they shone, and on their limbs the bloom 
Purpureal of the realms beyond the tomb. 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 249 

Id finite tumult married to strange rest 

Wrought Floreal to a statue pale and still; 

Lover and nurse, she nourished on her breast 
Her lover's head and sought to warm its chill, 

And he in turn set fancy to a quest 
All joy into one hour to distil ; 

Thus lay they, as the stars deserting went, 

Under the eye of Morning evident. 

AVith dreamy grace then Floreal emerged 

White from the bronzed touches of her mate, 

"Awake, O love, awake!" her luta tones urged— 
Melodious strings, alas ! disconsolate ; — 

"Over their boundaries our lives have surged 
And now must sink in shallows separate : 

Wake for one kiss, that so our lips may be 

Sweetened to pass thro' all eternity." 

Wordless with naked touch more eloquent, 

Long time they clung and felt each other's tears; 

Then Roman clothed himself and forthwith went 
Languidly groping from the chiming spheres; 

In peace the house slept, dreaming in content 
Of gorgeous marriage feast and golden years. 

He reached the porch. Like sheeted ghosts were blown 

Under the mists the city's bulks of stone. 



250 BANQUET OF DEATH. 

Somehow uuto his father's house he past, 
Which was astir already. Half arrayed 

A gallant armament was gathering vast 

And all the court-yard glittered with parade, 

Thro' which he flitted noiseless and aghast ; 
But soon upon his door a serenade 

Of joyous voices roused him to come forth. 

Clad in his bravery and his gems of worth. 

Then soon a pomp of freighted gondolas 

Possessed the waves that from that palace flowed, 

And in the front of all the pageant was 
Roman amid his joyous mates bestowed. 

Who in themselves forgot their triumph's cause 
Nor saw his glazed eye and heavy mood. 

Against the path and issue of the Morn 

They passed, a rival glory, earthy born. 

But as Ser Pollio's palace was descried 
An equal train to welcome them was met. 

And in Roman was led to meet his bride, 

Up the wide palace stairs, wave plashed and wet. 

Into the hall where he so late did hide. 
Under the statued bronzes dreaming yet, 

On was he led with wavering foot and limb 

Aud eyes that saw confusedly and dim. 



BANQUET OF DEATH. 251 

Unseen to him the tracery of that hall ; 

Unknown the pictured shadows of that house ; 
No glimpse, uo touch, unto him did recall 

His passage to the death-fulfilling vows ; 
Alas, he saw uo wedding throng at all, 

Saw not the very image of his spouse; 
And for her cry that to his ears did come 
Dreamed it a welcome to Elysium. 

But more awake, poor Floreal did stir 

From her cold trance the altar's pomp beside. 

And knew the vision that they brought to her. 
Shrill did her cry the even air divide, — 

"Roman! why comest thou? did our daring err? 
Art thou my promised lover? I thy bride? 

And does the dreadful vigil useless prove 

Our sin, our lamentably murdered love?" 

Smiling in death before her feet he fell. 

And she, half-frighted, drew away her dress, 

Then with one mighty shudder, visible. 
She flung her down upon his lifelessness, 

Speaking fond words as tho' he heard full well, 
Stroking his face with touches that might bless, — 

Till lower, lower yet her head did fall, — 

Aiid withered was earth's latest coronal. 



252 BANQUET OF DEATH. 

But now for beauty lost and youtli entombed, 

Here is no pity for an epitaph : 
Altho' these lovers were so early doomed 

What do long years to make fond bosoms laugh 
Their's was the glorious hour of life ungloomed 

To which the following days were dust or chaff"; 
Their's the white crest upon the billow fixed 
With the down-slipping, darkening slope unmixed. 



DRAMATIC AND LYRIC POEMS. 



PROMETHEUS, 



PROMETHEUS. 

Ho, Zeus! awake! What! slumberest thou within 

Once never-closiug heavens, cloven by fire, 

And let'st the wounded ether reunite, 

Untraversed by thy bolts? Why dost no more 

Send thy familiar lightnings to my eyes? 

Have they forgotten their accustomed track. 

Or is their wielder wearied ? Wake ! Arouse ! 

Let all the myriads of thy slaves in heaven, 

In linked array and long procession, wind 

Athwart this rock, and with their laughter fill 

These chasms, and strive to wound me, whom their mocks 

Minister to, not master ! Loose thy winds, 

And all thy lightnings league upon my head 



25G PROMETHEUS. 

With livid thunderbolts, only to crown 
Me as thy king, where I, untroubled, axi. 
Serene in space, as on a solemn throne, 
And meditate on thy eternal doom. 

Ho, Zeus! awake, and pour thy tortures down! 
I seek no intermission from such pains ; 
Rather they seem the solace of those griefs 
That memory makes, when the tormented heart 
In silence listens only to itself. 
The region rule, the primal power to sway 
The elements to form — all this is gone; 
And in its stead a worn and ruined bulk. 
Belted by many horizons about, 
I to this cleft, sea-girdled rock, am bound. 
Who erst, in earlier days, haunted the void 
And chasms infinite of chaos wide, 
And clomb the farthest star-rocks, and laid hold 
On all the marveled monsters of the deep. 
Doomed at far distance, I must be compelled 
To view the dread employment of the stars. 
Or watch what radiance wanders from the night. 
Or nearer see, in this contracted scope, 
Thy deities ujoon each other's heels 
In chase, with alternation bright or dark. 
Across the boundary and verge of heaven. 
As morn arises, clad with waning stars, 



PROMETHEUS. 257 

Or twilight, -with its tender robe of dew, 

Or all the changing color and decay 

The tumult and tranquillity between. 

Ho, Zeus ! awake, and shelter thee from wrath ! 

Already thy secure supremacy 

Is shaken, and the portents of thy fiill 

Blazoned abroad over thine enijDire wide : 

The currents of the air in thuudei's crash. 

The shuddering constellations are convulsed. 

And falling stars fade unto other skies 

In melancholy lightnings through the night, 

And meteors rain like dew upon mankind : 

The horizons are rifted, and let pass 

Flashes that lighten all futurity; 

While, underneath the billowy fields of mist, 

That are the footing of this realm forlorn, 

Ocean heaves heavily, with the thunderous birth 

Of lurid bulks, and, gaping, far within 

Discloses monsters hideous in its glooms, 

While others from afar are storming up 

Beyond the belted border of the world 

And the slow curve of horizon eclipsed. 

Dim visions disarrayed, from whence are ye? 

In dread solemnity, in savage gloom, 

In endless, sad procession, do ye press 

About this beetling and mist-based cliff, 



258 PROMETHEUS. 

All bending, as ye pass your eyes divine 

On me, and broad, benignant brows, where broods 

Eternal destiny, eternal war. 

What blast has speeded ye unto this coast? 

Come ye to tear my spectre-haunted heart 

With tortures new and pangs unbearable? 

Ah, no ; by your high seeming ye are kings ! 

Your shattered visages, heroic fronts, 

Have beat against the baffling thunder-roll 

Of our great enemy, who has sent you here. 

Witnesses of his wrath. Speak! who are ye? 



KRONOS. 

O, mighty Titan ! deemest thou, indeed. 

Thine overfeatured face, lifted supreme 

Above wan continents and troubled seas, 

Glows with such brightness as when once it gleamed 

Radiantly through thy realms and airs serene 

Beyond the starry visions beautiful ? 

Look in thy heart! Eternal war and grief. 

And else all unavailing agony. 

Have made thee like ourselves : cloudy, obscure. 

Ominous, with consuming fire at heart. 

And radiance ready to be born anew 

At the near moment, when, thy bonds all burst, 



PROMETHEUS. 259 

Thy spirit, voyaging perilous through the air, 
Shall hurl from heaven the thunder-wielding Zeus. 

PROMETHEUS. 

Girdled with oceau-sweeping clouds, a god 

Rears at ray feet. Or rivals he, or but 

Mirrors my grief: for in his aspect meet 

All agonies, all terrors, all despairs 

I have imagined, dreamed, or felt, since first 

Fire or the icy sleet clung to my limbs, 

Clasped to this precipice. Who art thou, sufferer? 

KRONOS. 

I am one unforgotten yet in heaven : 
Of whose enormous deeds and destiny 
The eternal air holds legend and record. 
Mine was the breath that over chaos came. 
And left the stars instead. I clothed the void 
With lightning and the eternal sunbeam flash; 
I woke all unenkindled germs within 
The womb of ether, wide-encircling all. 
And living things rose wonderingly to greet 
Existence, and the beauty each one W'ore, 
With spiritual looks of glad sui'prise ; 
My words roused echoes in the wilds of space. 



260 PROMETHEUS. 

Aud the awakened Titans walked and ruled 

Winds and the continual blithe dance of waves, 

And the air grew luminous with god-like shapes, 

Aud loud and living with harmonious sound. 

Then in the golden prime I fashioned man. 

And poured all blessings on him, but not gave 

Chains with luy gifts. I made him strong and free, 

And lithe and naked, like his playfellows : 

Serpents, as summer lightnings, innocent. 

That glide under the brake and the green gorse ; 

And set him in a region of delights. 

Green-girdled glades, and sun-encircled lawns, 

With undulating horizons of hills. 

But never from the creatures of my "will 

Demanded I obedience, homage, prayer. 

Unheralded by incense, still I passed. 

Housed in no temples, slender-shafted, hung 

Close to my cloudy couches, never took 

The smoke of sacrifice, or, smiling, saw 

The treasures of the loom or of the mine 

Poured at a statue's feet by some poor race : 

But left at liberty all lovely things, 

Created and creating, to drink joy 

Out of the overwelliug springs of life. 

Then Zeus arose, and gave laws to the worlds, 

And hung the stars in adamantine coils, 



PROMETHEUS. 261 

And marked their patli.s in heaven, and change itself 

Bound to his throne, and made obey his rule. 

And then the seldom-circling seasons flew 

Wearily over the unsmiling earth, 

That used to come at will, and the sun set 

And the stars rose, in alternation due, 

That once came thronging at each wild desire. 

And the dull heaven roofed over the dull earth, 

With four-fold change of morning and of day. 

And twilight, tremulous with unborn stars, 

And night, majestically magnificent. 

Then death came down among the herds of men, 

And dwellers in once happy plains, who took 

With momentary torment from the ground 

The scanty harvests yielded to their toil: 

But more intolerable tortures fell 

Among those barriers to the rule of Zeus 

And bulwarks of my realm— the Titan race. 

With thunders and with lightnings then unknown, 

Zeus overthrew them, under ocean waves 

Hurled, or with mountains heaped upon their heads, 

Or hung aloft, like thee, above the world. 

To blot the face of heaven, and wane and die, 

Like congregated clouds before the wind. 

But even to the worst of these remained 

Change and the sweet vicissitude of pain. 



262 PROMETHEUS. 

Even amid their torments, they beheld 

The season-suited meadows and blue hills, 

Vague, dreamy horizons and distant mists, 

And the stars hung in ether; to their view 

Even the invisible winds unveiled themselves, 

When charioted with foaming violence 

Their flight had left a path across the waves; 

But me Zeus' never-dying hate has doomed 

To melancholy exile, far remote 

From all the visions and voices of the earth. 

And the thick thronging jjresences of stars. 

Past the blank interval of space, beyond 

The borders of his realm, in ceaseless flight, 

Forever and forever have I swept. 

With but one dream, one passion, one desire. 

One meditation, for this moment, when, 

Loosed, I should thunder through space unto thy feet. 

And hail thee, risen, chief of all gods, and see 

The empire of our enemy at end. 

Ho, there ! ye antique gods with brazen throats, 

Shout your deliverer's name, till, at the din, 

Zeus tremble on his cloud-encurtained throne ! 



PROMETHEUS. 263 



Chorus of Titans. 



Prometheus, dreadless god, awfully lifted 

In blasted strength athwart the lightning's track, 
Hearken to us, voices about thee drifted 

Out of the sea, out of the tempest rack! 
In earth's cleft chasms and cloven prison-houses, 

In dreamless, dying hollows of the night, 
In places where no stir of life arouses, [thy might. 

We have watched, we have waited, with hearts that knew 
We have seen the tumult of thy face unshaken, 

The tempest of thine eye awe down the storm ; 
We have seen the birds of heaven, with beaks unslaken. 

Quail from the awful splendor of thy form. 
And lo ! in truth thou standest, where all the mountains 

In earthquake-lifted surges break and beat, 
Where the earth's barriers, loosed as floods or fountains. 

Foam up, a surf of summits, at thy feet. 
Calmly thou see'st the waves of ether whiten. 

As the hot bolts drop hissing from above ; 
Calmly the waters under leap and lighten 

And quench themselves in ripples in the cove. 
Calmly air dai'kens around thee without warning, 

And the night passes in suffrance of thy scorn : 
Alike to thee are the red shafts of morning, 

The melancholy light before the morn. 



264 PROMETHEUS. 

Greatly hast thou ever with great gods striven, 

Savior and safeguard of blind bulks below. 
We, who are but as winds, bridled and driven 

As fluctuating tides, that ebb and flow ; — 
With the great gods who mock us with their gilded 

And glorious life, who sting us witli their taunts. 
Who make us captives in the towers we builded, 

And exiles in our own familiar haunts. 
In deep, dim glades, in secret, sunny places. 

And on grey lawns, that stretch unto the moon, 
There is a glow of limbs and gleam of faces 

And voices, to melodious strings attune ; 
Daily the dull, domed, azure-ringing jDrison 

Opens, and gloriously a god has birth, 
A flaming youth with fiery steeds arisen, 

Borne brief but beautiful over the earth; 
And following fleet o'er summits forest-ladeu, 

And holy places hidden to the sun, 
Cometh the vision of a white-robed maiden 

Chasing the shadows until the night be done ; 
The forests and the clouds are all pervaded 

By sunbright spirits, delicate and fair. 
Scarce guessed, till altogether they are faded 

Into the divine gentleness of air ; 
Over his realms Ocean's inuumerous daughters, 

Exquisite and ethereal visions, range 



PR OMETHE US. 265 

Translucently ia the traiisluceut waters, 

Through all their bodies breathing pearly change ; 
Laughing, they rise, the limpid, lovely creatures 

Filling a little region each with balm. 
With garlanded, sweet brows and carved features 

Climbing up from the unfathomable calm. 
Yet weak are they to whom the worlds are parted, 

Divinities that dive and soar and play, 
While Ave, the supreme ones, the stormy-hearted, 

Turn our wan faces to oblivion grey. 
Give us again, god of our giant races, 

Limitless skies and levels of strange lands, 
Dim, shadowy silences and twilight spaces, 

And still forever stretching ocean strands ! 
In the home of ether rear us newer towers. 

Glowing with lightning, gloomy with the storm, 
While the brief, bright gods fade, with their golden powers 

Ruined, before thy resurrected form ! 
Rise! and the tempest, the tumult, and the thunder 

Suddenly up with thee and us shall start. 
Speak! and before thee the earth shall break asunder. 

Put forth thy hand ! the heavens shall fall apart. 



266 PROMETHEUS. 

PROMETHEUS. 

What mist climbs to my eyes? What in my throat 

Chokes me? I seem to hear a tumult vast, 

Rock echoes, the reverberating roll 

Of thunder through long, overhanging hills. 

The terror of the torrent in the air, 

The bleak, oracular utterance of jiine woods. 

Ocean's remote, reiterated noise^ 

But nearer now, and as familiar words 

And uuforgotten voices do the sounds 

Come unto me. O shadow-blasted host. 

The language of lost worlds is in mine ears. 

That have for ages known no speech except 

The solitary, shrill, defying scream 

Of the gorged eagle, or the mournful cry 

Of the grey sea-gull melting in the sea ! 

grey, great gods, awful with suffering, 

1 know you, the still-battling giant brood ! 
Your square-built statues and heroic heights. 
Sole-fashioned of the aspiring element, 
Vast-limbed, deep-hewed, faced with such solemn eyes. 
And fiery suddenness of open brows, 

No agony can ruin utterly. 

From what depths have ye risen, what place left 

For this grey, limitary, last confine? 



PROMETHEUS. 2G7 

Some hope is in your looks, and our great king 

Kronos in primal majesty ascends 

The ever-darkening, tempest-troubled air. 

Leaving behind him where his footsteps fall, 

Beaches of radiance and long sparce of calm, 

And secure harbor in the midst of storm ; 

And after him the heaven-climbing front 

Of Oceanos rises, who outspreads 

His vacant hands unto the elements. 

Unconscious of the ocean noise beneath, 

Lost in the ocean music of his soul ; 

But O, what voices fly before this form. 

What echoes follow after? all the air. 

Unutterably expectant of a god, 

Cowers, and all the Avaves are couched below. 

Mnemosyne, thy steps are hither bent, 

Not as once, floating through the gladdened air, 

With pomp of tongues and golden rush of sound, 

And all-exulting, all-inspiring joy, 

But mournfully, with trailing cries of woe. 

And looks of dread which thou dost shrink to see 

Reflected back from many a countenance. 

Till in thy bosom, and thine arms, thou veilest 

The purport and the passion of thy gaze : 

And lo, the interrupted thunder howls. 

And heavily into the twilight comes 



268 PROMETHEUS. 

Euceladus, the hugest of our broorl, 

Heaving up from a horizon convulsed, 

And heralded by gulls like a sunrise ; 

And after him, Hyperion, in "vvhose form, 

Immortal beauty warring Avith decay, 

Convulses all the visionary grace 

Of limb and feature; his great sister, next, 

Phoebe, whom oft on earth, with flying feet. 

The swiftly-following waves have tracked, white-wreathed, 

Down innumerable caverns, up steep glades, 

Unto unfathomable wilds forgot. 

And unfrequented forests, where the foam. 

Blending with foliage to the goddess' touch. 

And flutings of the meadow-margin reeds, 

Burst into forms, white-robed, and clamorous. 

And with the clash of cymbals followed still, 

Phcebe's swift flight, over the slopes and hills, 

Till into all the wilds of space diffused, 

Dim, dying, distant, echoless, afar. 

But O, what shape through the thick thunder-burst 

Looms with fierce cries, ground between savage teeth, 

Gnashing out horrible enmity to Zeus ! 

Typhon, thou risest, and with .thee, many more 

Unnamed, unnumbered, all about, upreared 

Like pillars of the firmament, lost in clouds. 

Obscure, mysterious, till a pallid gleam 



PROMETHEUS. 269 

Comes brightening all the faces of the doomed, 

And slowly to the circle of the gods, 

One other form, with rolling, restless eyes, 

And breasts heaving iu agony, descends, 

While voices in the sea and iu the air. 

Forever sweeping onward ever cry : 

" Cybele ! O, Cybele ! mother of the gods !" 

KRONOS. 

Shout, Titans! fill the four winds with your breath! 

Let your deep-throated clamors shake the earth. 

And jar Zeus' palaces, until he w'ake 

And meet the heralds of necessity ! 

Prometheus, now the hour born of thy hate 

And meditation, and most patient hope 

Arises. Lo, the omens fill the sky ! 

The cloudy creatures of Zeus' kingdom hide 

Each in the depth of his own element, 

While the affrighted eagles, clanging, pass 

The harbingers of our new victory. 

Ours is the triumph, ours again to dwell 

In gorgeous palaces, serene abodes. 

To wander altogether, or alone, 

In avenues unvisited by gods, 

Scarred with old battles, stately swart and slow, 

Or, on unfailing beds of asphodel. 



270 PROMETHEUS. 

Linger, while on the sward before our eyes 

The gracious, garlanded, and glistening, gods, 

In mazy convolutions and slow curves. 

Shall dance away the hours, or, whipped with rods, 

Shriek out a music sweeter than their song. 

And some shall sink forever from those airs 

To the abysses, solitary now, 

And soundless with suspended cataracts 

And unawakened winds, once the abodes 

Of our infernal torments. O, again 

Supremacy and sovereignty dilate 

My much-bruised breast ! The gesture-stilled air 

Kisses my fingers ; all the seas do bow 

Their crests to me, and the great orb of day 

AVaits on the horizon till I decree 

The sunlight and the breaking of the morn. 

Prometheus, delay not at this hour ; 

Each ally and accomplice of Zeus' fate 

Deserts him, and himself in darkling gloom. 

Desperate, does not dare to meet our war. 

Ah ! ah ! alas ! I falter. Lo ! he comes ! 

See! to its depth the glimmering air is stirred, 

A deeper glow than ever sunrise brought 

Bursts on the deep, and in the fiery heat, 

Visible, an avenging deity. 

Bloody in arms, in battle terrible, 



PROMETHEUS. 271 

Motionless, Zeus appears. His ruddy face 
Is shadowed by tlie curved aud cruel beaks 
Of eagles, aud one band, at play, restrains 
The motion of a thousand shadowy gods. 
Swart, dusky stars of undiscovered skies. 
That throng behind ; the other, high uppoised, 
With all his bolts collected for one doom, 
Hesitates yet a space. Ah! ah! I die, 
I fade in the fierce glare of power supreme. 
I fall afar. Pity, O pity, Zeus! 
Titans, I wither in my blasphemy ! 

Chorus of Titans. 

There is no noise in the girth 
Of the torn, tempest- vexed earth 
Fit to give voice to our -woe, 
Though we should roar as the sea, 
BufFetted blow after blow, 
Though in our might we should be 
Driven, as forests, below 
The breath of the air, set free. 
Or as wiuds on a desolate coast 
Thunder an infinite host. 
Nothing can speak our despair, 
For the king of us all is lost ; 
His thin locks float in the air, 



272 PROMETHEUS. 

The lightnings cease not to chase 
Each after each o'er his face, 
His hands are stretched out to find 
Help, but the succorless wind 
Under him -will not upbear. 
In the deep his glory is set, 
And the thunder, rising behind. 
Broods an ominous threat. 

And lo! with lightnings that cleave 

Clouds, with sunbeams that weave 

Veils of gold for the air, 

With clamor of eagles, with noise 

Of invisible wings, with blare 

Of lyre, of trumpet, of voice, 

"With tumult of visionings fair. 

With gathering of garlanded joys, 

Rises the ruler of all, 

And the winds are hushed at his call. 

And the waves are silent beneath, 

Till the ivy-leaves motionless fall. 

Where, o'er his forehead, they wreathe. 

And his lovely, unlidded eyes 

Look outward, imperial-wise, 

And his lips are smiling, apart, — 

His breast heaves not with his heart. 



PROMETHEUS. 273 

And his lips seem hardly to breathe, — 

Perfect, passionless, sweet. 

O, monarch, O Zeus ! thou art 

Unto us under thy feet. 

From desolate realms, from for 

Lands of the uttermost star, 

Seas of the undermost space, 

Shadowy, silent, we throng 

Unto this god-haunted place. 

And no heart bursts into song, 

And hope has died from each face. 

Yet in despair we are strong ; 

And above us, towering high, 

Narrowing the star-swept sky. 

Awful Prometheus doth gleam ; 

Fate-baffling patience does lie 

On his stony face, that doth seem 

Ever deeply to brood 

Over Time's altering mood, 

Until the last change has borne 

Its burdens of sorrow and gone; 

When thou shalt pass, O Zeus, as a dream : 

Thy worlds shall vanish away, 

And into the chaos uptorn 

He shall arise and sway. 



274 PROMETHEUS. 

ZEUS. 

Ye voices roar, buffet the clouds with words. 

Ye subterranean noises, fitful gusts 

Of wind-consumed thunder! Do ye deem 

To frighten so the ruler of the waves 

And the air-walking power, who has set 

The starry kings of fate beneath his feet? 

No force of youi's has raised you to this place 

From your deep-plunged prisons, desert realms, 

And pendant watches over obscure deej^s ; 

Soon shall you see in onset from above. 

My ether-wandering divinities. 

Fall on you with sharp swords and whips, and fling 

You down unechoing spaces, whose thin air. 

Cut by your rapid fall, singes like fire. 

While my all fleetly-following thunderbolts 

Drag at your heels, reluctantly. But thou, 

Wan spectre of these vulture-guarded steeps. 

Art worthier of my anger and my war. 

Than these, my earlier equals : bound to thee 

An unexpected visitant, I come 

Unto this ocean barrier, over which. 

Hanging, I oft have heard the ceaseless surge 

And wearied tumult of the ocean tongues, 

Ascending as to answer to thy grief, 



PROMETHEUS. 275 

Iq melancholy vastness of dismay. 

Have not these granite-girdled billows, or 

These ever-chained tempests, changing rocks, 

And mountains melting as the mists away ; — 

Have not, or these, or thine own gaping wounds, 

Thy heavy majesty of hoary hair. 

Thy wrinkled brows, the tablets of all time. 

Taught thee at last the utterance of the truth, 

Speak! am I not alone omnipotent? 

PROMETHEUS. 
Is it not enough? Is it not enough, my heart, 
That the linked powers of the earth and air 
With frost, fire, hail, rain, lightning, tempest, have 
Wrought ruin in my caverned bulk, and held 
My spirit in keen tortures? but that he. 
My enemy, must leave unshadowed realms 
Of solemn perturbation and sweet calm, 
For this wind-shattered cavern of the earth 
To triumph over me ! But O, slight god. 
Weak as the foam of the sea, briefer than day, 
EfTaceable as lightning from the sky, 
Tempt not too far, lest at my call arise 
Some unusurped authority, to awe 
Thee into nothing, when, calling aloud 
Unto thy slaves, thou shalt but find thyself 
King of the airy shadows of thy words. 



276 PROMETHEUS. 



ZEUS. 

Still do they answer, still through all my realms, 

Azure iu azure, orb in orb inlaid. 

The deed outspeeds desire, that scarce I need, 

Winged for all winds, my eagle messengers. 

Pinnacle-bred, haunting those heights, whereon 

The morning of the world forever dwells. 

And yet, I wonder at thy menace ; thou, 

Whom the least tyrant-tempest of them all. 

Takes by the frosted hair and bends to earth, 

Agonized ; whom the barriers of the wind 

Encompass and wall up from exercise ; 

Whom chains and the cleft rock prison for aye! 

Thou whom my wrath would shatter, did I not know 

Some secret, sombre hope dwells in thy heart. 

Which thou must yield to me! What dost thou dream? 

Again the Titan empire to upbuild. 

In huge disorder, heaping world on world? 

Learn then of me, that there is requisite, 

A greater power to change than to create. 

Even I, alas ! omnipotent, supreme, 

Wait on the motion of the shapes I made; 

Autumn unclouds my region-reaching oak, 

And the stars rush from heaven, nor can I save 

My fiery towers from decay, but still 



PROMETHEUS. 277 

All things as at the first move ordered on. 

But thou, O Titan, bend thyself to me! 

Bow thy soul in its secret hold of pi-ide: 

A happier state shall come to thee than when, 

AVith all thy monstrous brotherhood, thou ruledst 

The realms unsepai'ated and unshaped, 

Built without boundary in the abysms of space. 

PROMETHEUS. 

little ruler of a little realm, 

Thou canst not comprehend the larger life, 
The loftier joys, the limitless desires, 
The prime of gods supreme in their decay. 
The dusk of my untraveled threshold past, 

1 rose upon a world just dawning dim, 
Immortal essence only and sublime, 

And with the comrade-rivals of my state, 
Heroic vigor exercised ; each with each, 
In locked rigidity of marble limbs 
"Wrestling, or sweeping onward in great cars. 
Voluble with all the echoes of the world. 
Charioting over the ethereal waves. 
Often I vanquished from the elements, 
Vast architectures, palaces immense. 
Piled masonry of prisoned flame or mist, 



278 FBOMETHEUS. 

With columns carved of air, with waves coufiued 

To azure, arching corridors, with domes 

Built out of clouds, wherein, enthroned, I sat 

And played with life, and moulded at my will. 

Sweet, slender-limbed shapes, solicitous, 

Gratefully-eyed and singing with the waves. 

In rivalry within my palace porch. 

Often I loved to wander forth and rise, 

Not luminous, iu cloudy belts confined. 

Upon the shadowy border of dim lands. 

And shoot my dazzling arrows through the dark ; 

Fiercely at first, till every far-off peak 

Rose radiantly robed, more faintly then. 

Over the undulating slopes and fields, 

Last languidly across the ridged waves. 

Till loosely from my hand the bow I dropped 

To blaze a golden horizon beneath. 

Often in stormier mood I lay at length, 

Uppropped upon a level range of hills. 

And on the cloudy curtains hung about, 

Wrought strange emblazonings, colors and shapes 

Of glowing, waning glory oft reborn, 

As palpitating with desire, I breathed 

Ethereal virtue into the dull air. 

Often I saw Phoebe's white brow arise. 

White brow, white breasts, white body, floating slow 



PROMETHEUS. 27& 

Through the clear azui-e of her highest realms, 

And mounting up, have girdled with my arms. 

Her unflushed fairness ; often have I met 

Morning, ere yet earth's limits felt her feet, 

Fitfully prodigal of smiles, with frank 

And liberal embraces, who but stamped 

U]3on the quivering platform of the clouds, 

And aerial towers at the touch arose. 

With avenues remote, perspectives dim 

Of arches, columns uppiled, uiche-statued walls, 

With confused distances of gorgeous domes ; 

Where, in a dim pavilion, deep retired, 

Such pleasure grew, that all the palace flushed, 

Each pinnacle and highest coign glowed red, 

And the great gate-ways, shaken wide apart. 

Let forth a lovely-fronted race of forms, 

With music and with perfume to the world. 

Such were our pleasures ; and the seasons came, 

Not alternating but all intertwined. 

To cast their various burdens at our feet : 

And our power working on the elements. 

Filled all their moulds with passion, which they gave 

Back to us in embraces, the deep pang 

And memory of which, makes my heart burst, 

And my endurance grow a mockery. 



280 PROMETHEUS. 

ZEUS. 

Fool ! hast thou swallowed all the winds of heaven 

To vent in words? On thee I turn my back, 

Signal of doom. Ye Titans, kings of eld ! 

Though ever as an angry god I came, 

Deadly and opposite to your desires, 

Although my creatures circled ye with pain, 

Until ye dreaded the devouring waves, 

The azure ether imminent of fire ; — 

Some deep remorse visits my heart at last. 

At sight of your dead majesties, your limbs 

Wasted with tides, your faces worn with Bight, 

Your bodies seared with fire, with lightning seamed 

Unable to the orders of your wills. 

Your voices as of charnel echoiugs. 

Pain, fain, would I release you and restore; 

All rests but with yourselves; lift up your eyes! 

Holds not the air its freedom on light terms, 

And less they owe, those supple gods who roam 

Enchanted through enchanted realms, mid airs 

Continually changing to new charm ? 

So may ye if ye will, like them, float slow, 

Borne on through all the changes of the day. 

From pomp to pomp of glory or of gloom ; 

So may ye, sitting in serener state. 



PROMETHEUS. 281 

Command the forces that afflict you now 

With keenest torturings. Speak but one word, 

And all these deserts shall, with sudden bloom. 

Compass ye. From the ocean floor shall rise 

A gleaming miracle of graceful forms, 

Maidens from the starred sea-caves, with great eyes 

Unruffled in their azure infinite, 

With limbs that cling like the cool dash of foam, 

To your parched bulks, and with upheaving breasts, 

Bursting, like flowers that shake the dew away, 

In odorous depths of beauty undefined. 

Chorus of Titans. 

Laugh, shout, ye antique gods! 
Zeus will no more afflict us with his rods. 
Koar, revel, dance, who of us longer grieves ? 
O patient equal of all periods, 
Prometheus, let thy face be touched with scorn. 
Like the faint ripple on the horizon, 
When all the nearer ocean rocks and heaves. 

As we below are borne 
Through the vast valleys of the world forlorn. 
Gigantic in the shadow of the leaves ; 
While, with enormous voices far and wide. 
Echoing ever, ever multiplied. 



282 PROMETHEUS. 

We fill the world with thunders of our mirth, 
Till the great waters roaring back shall- blend 
With the wood noises, and the hills shall send 
From each to each our laughter o'er the earth. 

O, grey-grown gods and true, 
Forgiveness shall fall down on us like dew ; 
Zeus will no more remember of our tears, 
If we forget the lightnings hurrying through 
Our realms, our gi-adual decay and blight. 
The ever-certain sorrow of the night, 
The visionary weight of all the years. 

Slow winging their sad flight. 
If we, for old assurance and calm, might 
Take weakness and all servile, trembling fears ; 
If we, through all our thousand trumpets blow 
Hymns of thanksgiving, triumph of our foe, 
And crowd more close his heaven with servile breath, 
A little while our chains shall easier lie, 
And some sweet charm of life shall hurry by 
Our eyes, a space unfilled with forms of death. 

Shall we not bow each head ? 
Shall not each bulk before this Zeus be led 
Slave to the sea-nymph's and the boy-god's mock, 
With flower-chains binding every bosom dread, 



PROMETHEUS. 283 

In lither wreathing than the rocks we wore? 

Shall we not bend upon this cloud-paved floor, 

These fronts that have sustained the thunder's shock? 

Shall we not, from this shore, 
Borne on great winds with an increasing roar, 
Our drooping limbs that mix and interlock, 
Take from the kingly terror of Zeus' face, 
To fade in some forgotten depth of space; 
While earth, behind, sends up a mighty cry 
That we, the giant, the heroic brood, 
Should alter before Zeus, our dauntless mood, 
And sink 'neath the lost horizon and die? 

No! rather meet and dare 
All sufferings that Zeus can make us bear! 
All sorrow to the great soul is akin. 
And little pleasures fade in the fierce blare, 
"Where pain clasps passion in embraces dire. 
Zeus, in the summer fulness of desire, 
Amid immortal beauty he doth win. 

Soon of such joy doth tire. 
But we, whose bosoms press but shapes of fire, 
Whose arms must hold the straining ocean in. 
Who take the kisses that the tempest leaves. 
The rock's embraces when the earthquake heaves. 
We, only we, know all the depths of life, 



284 PROMETHEUS. 

And wheu the little reign of Zeus shall end! 
Stronger from all this stress shall we ascend, 
Kings of the elements at calm or strife. 

ZEUS. 
Enough ! enough ! Peal after peal afar, 
Uninterrupted, unimpeded, rolls 
The Titan laughter, dying and reborn, 
In echoing murmur interminable, 
Upon the vanquished winds. Ethereal shapes. 
Presences, voices, that in earth and sky 
Incaverned dwell ! bellow with deeper scorn 
Back to these Titans, as before them now 
I lay aside my thunder and my fire, 
And stand defenseless, dreadless in their eyes. 
In incantation only to the air. 

Chorus of Titans. 
He smiles, but his eyes o'erfraught 
Have darkened with the coming thought; 
What woe plans he, what new doom 
Is coming? lo, a sudden gloom — 
And the day-built forms fade fast. 
Driven afar before the blast ; 
The hoar lightnings tyrannize 
O'er our shadow-closed eyes, 



PROMETHEUS. 285 

And our ears, like the sea-shell, 
Know nothing but the thunder-swell. 
Rouse, Titans, roar defiance back 
Above the tempest and the wrack ! 
Wake, Echo, with a sudden shout. 
Clinging these rugged cliffs about, 
Till through his hollowed hands he sends 
Our clamor, and afar ascends 
The forest's answer loud and deep, 
The echo where the cataracts leap, 
And the upheaving, muffled waves, 
Hoarse moaning from their windy caves! 

All the air is lightened now. 
And a flush comes to each brow ; 
The Twilight from before each face 
Is parted, -and, with tender grace 
As the dusk lets slip a star, 
We rise from the cloudy war. 
Softer shapes in softer aix's. 
Now the new-born ether bears. 
Our limbs are relaxed, our flesh 
Moulded, tinted, veined afresh ; 
Our strained, ruffled eyes anew. 
Fill up with pictures of rich hue ; 
And each head uprolling bright 



286 PROMETHEUS. 

Is touched with an immortal light; 

Now our prime returns again, 

Stirs the blood in every veiu, 

And the joyful, giant throng 

Leaps in dance and laughs in song, 

And with laughter and with shout, 

Hands the bubbling wine about. 

A great beaker, such an one 

As the god Porphyrion won. 

Tearing from iEtna's rocky side, 

A valley in its leafy pride. 

'Twas a chasm, deep and dim, 

Circled by a forest's rim, 

Crowded by tall trees, that left 

Spaces beneath them, arched and cleft, 

Where stately and blown images 

Of mortals might repose at ease, 

And girdled by a hundred rills. 

Threading its closely-crowded hills. 

But Porphyrion tore it up 

From the rock, and as a cup 

Fashioned it; but first he bound 

A great hoop of gold around 

Its rough sides ; then carved the rim. 

With many a quaint and curious whim ; 

Then fixed the grasses and the trees 



PROMETHEUS. 287 

To green and golden effigies; 
Then poured a mighty flood therein, 
Clear as the crystal air had been ; 
Then lifted it with many a laugh, 
And gave it to the gods to quafl^. 
Add made it dedicate to be 
The ruler of all revelry. 

The sky brightens, and as dawn 

Deepens to the disc of morn, 

In the fiery cirque of light 

Start out two figures to our sight. 

Oue great Zeus, with carelessly 

Disordered robes, the other by 

Dionysos, slender-armed, 

Haii'-uncrowned, a serpent charmed 

For his 'sceptre. O, great gods! 

Lift not unto us your rods ; 

Rather let some poppied joys 

Fall upon us, for our voice 

Hails you in worship, though we have 

No temples rising from the wave. 

No solemn priest, no chaunting choir, 

No altar crowned with sacred fire, 

Though milk-white heifers here be not. 

Nor the flower-wound garlands brought, 



288 PROMETHEUS. 

Nor passioned maidens following, 

With rent robes and steps that sing; 

To your triumph here we crowd, 

Shapes with toils heroic bowed ; 

A vast, endless, antique train. 

In awful pageantry of pain, • 

Dragging through the darkened air 

The eclipsing bulks we bear, 

Crowd and press about your throne 

In combat to be looked upon ; 

Or, like the waves about your feet, 

In frightened fury break and beat. 

Or, looking timid up, behold 

Your faces, glowing through their gold. 

Your still, embalmed souls, that rise. 

In gracious pity to your eyes. 

Your tender hands with calm stretched out 

Over our wearied, restless rout. 

PROMETHEUS. 

In wonder do the swiftly-running waves 

Pause with bowed crests, and the slant sunlight, poised 

Tremblingly, fluctuates above the earth. 

Ye vales, ye mist-smoothed chasms and ravines, 

No more shall ye re-echo with the noise 



PROMETHEUS. 289 

Of battles ; through your hollow realms no more 

In arrogance the thunder shall oppose 

The answering elements, nor through your Avilds 

The solitary lightning swift shall wind, 

Seeking some fallen god, for now, at last, 

The still-embattled Titans, whose vast cries, 

Harsh music, and majestic dissonance 

Kept the smooth-gliding, gracious gods in awe. 

Sink fawning at the feet of Zeus, while 1 

Alone, alone of all the things that live. 

Lift my deserted but undaunted front 

Against his power. O, solitude of heart, 

No more in visiting airs shall I delight, 

Or the cup-bearing clouds ; though for a space 

The moon dew is upon my lips, I feel 

The rapture of the flowers in my frame, 

The stir of winds about me; soon they go; 

No elements unaltered must exist. 

To be familiar with me as of yore. 

Lo! ocean ebbs with all its waves away. 

Long chorus to my loud soliloquy, 

Which, in the clamorous quiet of their caves, 

They murmur ever, and adown yon ridge, 

That visionary steep of pine-topped crags, 

The mist-robed phantoms of the sky depart. 

Earth seems to sink beneath me, with its peaks. 



290 PB03IETREUS. 

Its rock-thronged highlands, and deep-fruited vales, 

And flower-haunted meadows; I am left 

In sheer tranquillity of vacant space, 

Above all coverts of the gods or men, 

Above all hopes that held me to the earth. 

The kindly comfort of a home and race, 

The joy of fellowship in common woe, 

Are gone from me, and naked and alone. 

Bereaved and desolated, do I stand. 

O'er the dead images of my desire. 

Simple and single in ferocity. 

ZEUS. 

Ha ! changest thou thy dread, unaltered look, 
And, blent with passion, breathest threatenings ! 
Put forth thy strength ! Most joyfully I come 
To this last measure of almighty powers. 
And welcome any fate, so that it be 
Briefer than lightning. To live in dread 
Is to live damned, and direr torments rise 
Upon the level, wandering floors of heaven, 
Than in hell's boundaries ; for still I feign 
Ominous destinies in open things, 
Take poison at the banquets of the gods, 
Welcome my eagles as they fly to me 
As heralds of some fate, and ever seem 



PROMETHEUS. 291 

An enemy to every shape unknown. 

Better I were a wanderer throughout space 

Than reign unloved and loveless in my fear. 

Put forth thy power again and close in strife! 

And ye, ye easily-abused bulks 

Awake, leave fawning on nie ; know yourselves, 

Your bestial revelry and blind revolt ! 

Chorus of Titans. 

Accursed race ! O, lamentable gods, 

Led eye-enchanted to an easy doom, 
Kissing Zeus' golden, flower-encircled rods, 

Now falls on us an all-engulfing gloom ! 
Prometheus, eye-averted, stern and cold. 

Thou knowest our weakness and the circling ills. 
Uplifted like a peak thou dost behold 

The horizons of all our lesser hills ! 
Now from grief-darkening of thy way we go, 

Passing with throbs of passion as we came, 
Alone, alone to thee is left the blow. 

Battle, the meed of victory and the fame. 
Command the earth and let the waves .divide. 

Cleaving their depths a newer race shall rise. 
Mingling Zeus' beauty with the Titan pride, 

To scale for thee the thunder-bastioned skies. 
For us, we tread no more where thou dost burn 



292 PROMETHEUS, 

lu battle, or dost languish in defeat, 
Tried and unworthy, wearily we tui-n. 

Welcoming back our tortures as most sweet. 
Farewell ! the night divides us, on thee falls 

The greatness and the glory of some flite ; 
Fear dogs our footsteps, over us earth's walls 

Close, and the avenging torments on us wait. 

PROMETHEUS. 

Zeus and ye suppliant gods, blindly ye seek. 
Dragging my soul with subtly-twisted nets, 
My so-long-guarded secret to surprise, 
Aud in the insolence of long success. 
And the security of torture borne, 
Deem it of little moment. Think ye, then. 
That wasting tides, or the keen tempest touch, 
Alone have made me what I seem? Ah, no, 
Terrible knowledge pent in me has wrought 
Enormous agony in every limb. 
And stretched me fainting on this rocky ledge. 
Often, in nightly wrestling with my fate, 
I shook the vaulted heavens until the stars 
! Lessened and left the air unto my strife 

In dreadful awe, and Morning, when she came 
Pushing the w'aves aside with rounded arm, 
And lifting her enameled visage up. 



PROMETHEUS. 293 

Shrieked sudden at my ghastly horror, hung 

Opposite her, and flying to her caves. 

Frenzied the east with fitful shudderiugs. 

And yet there is no way but to unbare 

My secret to your eyes. All hope is gone, 

No loss can touch us ; our disease is grown 

Beyond the capability of increase. 

In piteous dotage and unfurnished powers 

The Titans wait their doom, and Zeus himself, 

The flush of first creation passed away, 

Sees his worlds, not so fair as when they came 

Pulsing to every passion of his frame, 

In ordered beauty by him, ordered now 

In even, endless, and eternal round, 

Regardless of the ruler of them all. 

Chorus of Titans. 

The earth is old, the earth is grey 
With fields that have forgot the sun, 
And hills that look no more upon 

The ever-burning birth of day, 

With falling slopes that melt away 
To hollows where no waters run, 
To seas where shore and sea are one, 

With forests that in no winds sway. 

But in eternal, fixed decay 



294 PROMETHEUS. 

Look out on the monotony 
Of the encircling, empty sea. 

All life is blasted to the root, 

Earth's flowered vision ruined lies, 
And all the golden fruitage dies ; 

While man, the flower of earth and fruit. 

Questions the future, wan and mute, 
As all, between the grass and skies, 
Faint-fluted underbreaths arise, 

And ghostly aerial voices bruit. 

In place of happy pipe or lute, 

With Avhich glad men, in field and glade. 
Harvests of fruits and flowers once made. 

Dirges are blown about the hills, 
Shadowy forms and vast uprear, 
Striking their cymbals with strange cheer, 

Till their king rises up, and stills 

Their revel and the echoing hills. 
There is but one day in the year. 
And the winds in procession drear 

Blow, and the rain continual fills 

The overladen forest rills. 

That bear the only noise of mirth 
Through the strange realms of the earth. 



PROMETHEUS. 295 

The Hours, with slow, reluctant feet, 
And with averted, unlit gaze, 
Tread out the remnant of the days 

Over the fields that once were sweet ; 

No more their naked bosoms beat 
In mystic dances, through the haze 
Of morning, heralding her face, 

No longer in the midday heat, 

In valleys musical they meet, 
And carelessly forget to weigh 
Time's proper gifts of gold or grey. 

In dull magnificence and dim, 

Under the solemn winds that blow, 

Ungarlanded the Seasons go. 
With footsteps fallen into a hymn. 
And bearing vases that overbrim. 

With the sepulchral flowers of woe. 

Thera the dull earth forgets to know 
That, once touched by their garments' riin, 
Burst into golden or green trim. 

Broke into laughter and in song:. 

Still heralding their flight along. 

No more the fury-breathing stars 
Their fiery, unchecked courses run, 



296 PROMETHEUS. 

In race forever just begun ; 

No more the gods that urged their wars 

Lean careless from their shaken cars 
To loose the rein some goal to shun, 
Or clear their pathways, as the sun 

Bursts through its cloudy belts and bars, 

Still loftily, without a pause, 
Lifting their face's languid life, 
Calm victors over fiercest strife. 

All the old forms magnificent, 

Fiery, and frail, the skyey king's 
Dawnings and subtle sunsettings, 

And creatures of each element. 

Fade, or in one grey hue are blent; 
The majesty and might of things. 
The far, dim ether, that enrings. 

And the near heavens above us bent. 

Become a liviug monument 

To those wan visions of decay, 
Passions and hopes once blithe and gay. 

ZEUS. 

All things are thunderbolts unto the weak. 
The hoar-frost's lines on the dew-beaded chain 
Of morning, or the sunlight's golden bar, 



PROMETHEUS. 297 

Methinks, might easily oppress thy limbs, 

Since my scarce heavier rivets hold thee down 

Eternally. Lo! now thy threatened foe, 

I wrench the chains from out thy flesh, break short 

Thy fastenings, and the cleft rock behind 

Split open, and erected let thee stand. 

Uplift above the heights that overawe. 

Free as myself, and able, now, to urge 

War equal, nor defenseless meet thy doom. 

PROMETHEUS. 

Again, again, I breast the air away, 

Ti'ead the sea foam, and exercise again 

The potency and privilege of a god. 

This courtesy does ask a recompense. 

Hear, then, O Zeus, the wisdom I have learned 

In solitary watches, when the stars 

Swept gradual from the zenith, and below 

The moon-devoured ocean afar was led. 

Thou knowest that Kronos from the darkness passed 

First, and that after him, tumultuous 

Throning in thunder, the invisible. 

Keen, elemental visionings did come, 

Uutameable until Porphyrion 

Rose, flooding all the hollows of the world. 

Or in the depths of sunlight, far withdrawn. 



298 PROMETHEUS. 

The brooding exaltation of whose mind 

Fell on created beings with strange awe, 

Till thou from him wrestedst the sovereignty, 

Turning it unto evil, when to me 

Stretched out a twilight vision in the sky. 

Lone, grey, unfathomable, marvelous. 

All dim beginnings and wan lengths of Time, 

All legends, voices, prophecy ings, fates. 

All builded forms, upon whose being stands 

Thy empire, air and undistinguished space, 

Deities from reality divorced. 

In their o'erpowering potency unseen. 

And all the elements, and night and day. 

And, vaster still, veiled oblivion. 

In faint, aerial groups came past this rock, 

Or, single, all the solitude inspired, 

Each with a haunting secret in his eyes, 

The shock of which was rather fear than joy; 

For then I knew that, though to thee was due 

Observance and the outward show of state. 

In secret all divinities adored 

My: rock-built throne, based on dim prophecies; 

That on my act the frame of ether hung, 

Still waiting on my will ; that all the stars. 

The builded, fair abodes that thou hast set 

Innumerable forever in thy space. 



PROMETHEUS. 299 

Were the slaves of my silent agony ; 
That I have but to cease to struggle on 
To melt a wreath of mist into the air, 
And I draw with me all the flaming suns, 
All the great powers and gold divinities, 
Even the piteous old gods below, 
To wane, to pass, to perish utterly. 

ZEUS. 

O, idle boaster, listen ! from afar 

My vulture's long-delaying clamor comes, 

Cleaving the tempest-channeled vales of heaven, 

To drown thy utterance, that fills my ears 

With all the babbling of the elements. 

Bent on conspiracy against my will. 

No veering destiny of winds can shake 

My firm-based empire, or the woven plots 

Of the weak stars, forever wandering. 

The firmament of fate is in the mind; 

The mountainous thought, heaving the mountainous worlds 

Up out of chaos, also can restrain 

Each petty wind that chafes its boundary. 

Each fretting billow of the curbed sea, 

Each rebel bulk, maddened and threatening: 

No legendary echoes, thin and faint. 

No languages mysterious in the air. 



30a PROMETHEUS. 

No dream-brought visions of unsure delight, 
Can re-illume thy vision, gild thy hair, 
Make strong again thy sinews, or from me 
Take aught of all the attributes I wear, 
My power, or my solemn-crowning calm. 
Unfading beauty of immortal youth. 

Chorus of Titans. 

Plead, Titans, bending low. 

Ere Death has loosed his bow, 
Ere yet his mighty shafts upon us pour, 

Ere sinks our dying moan 

Before Oblivion's throne, 
As sink the waves upon the wind-stilled shore! 

What though as gods we felt 

Purpureal heavens melt 
About us, blissful climes and purer life? 

What though worn, grey, discrowned, 

Powerless, praiseless, bound, 
Vainly Avith torments are we now at strife? 

Still unto every breast 
May come some happier guest, 
Joy's birth is in the bloom of common things; 



PROMETHEUS. 301 

Beneath the touch of hope 
New horizons do ope, 
And we again of many workls are kings. 

Lo ! in the earth beneath 

Men wither as they breathe, 
Scarce perfect in the moment of their prime, 

But with how sad a heart 

Ever do they depart 
From all the flowers and fruits and fields of Time. 

Yet they may never die, 

But part of earth or sky 
Live in the vapor's or , the forest's glow ; 

Their bodies paint the wind. 

And their sad hearts are shrined 
In tempests, or the ocean's tided flow. 

But we, the gods that rise, 

Eclipsing the sunrise. 
Whom the all-livid horizon enshrouds; 

Who come with laugh and shout, 

A tossed, triumphant rout, 
Borne on swift-hurrying winds and rolling clouds; 

We, who from out the waves 
Have cleft our giant caves, 



302 PROMETHEUS. 

Who haunt the tired and torrent-troubled earth; 
Who met in mighty wars, 
That shook the balanced stars; 

Who made the ether echo with our mirth: 

We cannot die and blend 

In changes without end; 
The stars came with us, with us they must fade. 

From our decay shall rise 

No slopes of pied-wrought skies. 
No heavens the fairer for our dying made. 

Befoi'e our birth there was 

No dream of wave or grass, 
No flashing, girdled splendor of the earth, 

No airs with rythmic beat, 

No cloudy visions sweet. 
No foam girls climbing up the ocean's girth. 

O god, what fairer thing 

Deemest thou that death shall bring, 

Thau these that lie around us, and so near? 
Though blent with woe and pain, 
Sweet, sweet they seem again. 

And thy new gift, O god, too drear, too drear. 



ni ME THE US. 303 



PROMETHEUS. 



Peace, troubled gods! Yet but a moment's space, 

Ye couched, like eagles waiting for a sun 

To light them to their prey : but at the word, 

The inevitable, the doom-invoking word. 

Fear, doubt, dismay, desj^air, falls down on you. 

Deemed ye so easily to overcome, 

With weakness multiplied and made more weak. 

Our enemy? or are ye now content 

To occupy, in uncomplaining woe, 

These prisons of his choice, and call them fair? 

Are these your soft, ethereal palaces. 

And couches of calm rest? is this harsh wind 

The melody, exalted beyond sense, 

That soothed your slumbers in your happier climes? 

O, never in defeat before, in pain. 

Titans, were ye so far abased to Zeus, 

Whose cloudy thunder, strangled at its birth, 

Whose ineffectual lightning, bowed you not. 

As now your fears to his triumphant look, 

Strong in defeat. Lo ! where above he leans, 

In solitary might, serene, severe, 

And falters not at the approaching end. 



804 PROMETHEUS. 

ZEUS. 

I falter; I, whose footsteps, yet remote, 

Have jarred discordantly the pinnacled 

And intervallied earth, before whose eyes, 

Burning, unquenchable, insatiate. 

The Ocean, like a naked girl desired, 

Shrank pallidly api^alled ; what time I passed 

Through solemn slopes of twilight-ordered sky, 

And sank upon the bosoms of the foam, 

Girdled with the green waters in the west. 

Never before thy power shall I pale. 

What power hast thou, indeed, though power thou hast? 

Supremacy gives not the force to sway. 

Often the wisest in inaction dwell. 

Thou hast no heart to exercise thy hate, 

Not though I bind thee up anew, and pour 

Penances on thee and redoubled pain. 

The hoar severity of hopeless age. 

Unable limbs, and feeble arteries, 

And eyes that see no glory in the air 

Nor watery processions ; soundless ears. 

Incapable of all the utterance 

Arising round thee, for thou art too weak 

To dare the unrecorded flight, bc-yor.d 

The ever-bending circle of the vast 



PROMETHEUS. 305 

And solemn labor of this starry scheme, 
And thou must list the chiding Titan cry, 
Earth-pleadings, and the air-pervading sounds. 
Persuasive, unto which thou canst not turn, 
Unanswering and with unaltered look. 

PROMETHEUS. 

O, charm of many voices, floating up 
From valleys, caverns dim, and dewy glades, 
Sweet ministrants of solaces divine 
Unto my sleepless agony, and ye 
Vault-dwelling and enringiug sounds, that give 
Aerial responses to all earthy cries, 
Over your trembling and uncertain swell 
Must I stretch hands and bid you be no more? 
Thou, too, O frame of ethei', though ' upbuilt 
Out of the fragments of an earlier world, 
The higher halls of more heroic gods. 
Something I love thee still, whether the sun 
Comes foaming up the sea with its fiery feet. 
Or the faint, quiet moon fills heaven and fades, 
Or, built above the twilight, all the stars 
Hang like enchantment on the crystal air, 
In architecture intricate and vast. 
Elaborate structure, airy seeming, based 
Firmly, and altogether o'er the sky 



306 • PROMETHEUS. 

Moving, till, dimmer grown, it disappears, 

As the first grey billow leaps to the lijDS of Dawn. 

Sad is it to my heart to bid thee cease ! 

Thee, too, O prison of my age, I love, 

Earth, with thy gated horizons, that take 

The stars through their broad portals, thy great peaks. 

Lifted serene and inaccessible. 

Thy wind-blown slopes, thy shifting mists, thy streams, 

That move with pomp of tributary clouds 

And hills in long procession, to the sound 

And piping of the crag-sonorous storm, 

Thy kingly-mantled forests, thy swift winds, 

Heralds and heirs of heaven's pageantry. 

Thy limitless and livid desert wastes. 

Thy shores in silence ever echoing 

The sullen roaring of rock-shadowed surf, 

Thy stretches of the solitary sea. 

Again, again the blasted vision comes, 

That oft in my mid-agony of strife 

Rose to me, and again, O earth, I see 

All thy fires fade, ' and fill oblivion. 

No longer may the lying dream depart 

From my eyes, as the preying night uplifts 

His plumage, and his beak from out my heart 

Withdraws, and warm airs, floating from the sun, 

Touch holily my forehead, and I take 



PROMETHEUS. 307 

Purification from the priest-like morn. 

No, I must shriek my sorrow to the air, 

Bid farewell to the forests, where I kept 

A state unsearchable by bolts of Zeus, 

When first I fled before his angry frown; 

Farewell the cliffs I haunted, and farewell 

The sands, where level with the foam I lay, 

Oozed up like some sea-monster in a cave. 

Farewell the slopes, where oftentimes I drove 

Great herds of lofty cattle thro' the glooms ; 

Farewell the pleasant wood-nymphs, whose brows have 

Moss stains and forest shedding, aud whose hair 

Is garlanded with flowers and with grass; 

Farewell the airy faces, veiled with winds, 

Farewell the habitations, dim and low, 

Where I inherited all hopes and fears 

Of mortals, and farewell the thoughts I drew 

Out of the wet, warm bosom of the earth, 

To be the inner solace of my soul, 

In its long vigil o'er the waste of years — 

A lidless eye, set mid unshrinking skies — 

Youth's passionings and manhood's mighty force. 

Age's tranquillity and sad content, 

Visioniugs and desires, farewell, farewell ! 



308 PROMETHEUS. 

ZEUS. 

I have hushed my winds upon each piny steep. 
Each islet cavern, airy-tongued, and each 
Hoar cliff, and every unattemped peak, 
Visited but by echoes, that they all 
Might listen to the voice of their new king. 
But their reverberating tongues but lend 
A varied modulation unto sighs, 
Faint-hearted farewells, salutations, sounds 
Of sorrow, parting only. Art thou he, 

passion-stricken Titan, sunk uj^on 

This floor of shifting mist, who has subdued 
The powers of my kingdom to thy rule? 
Thy force is weak to save thy giant brood, 

1 lift my finger and Hyperion, 

In all the moving glory of a god 

Fades sudden, fled from the unrufiled air, 

I look, and Oceanos, wan, but mute. 

Melts murmuring adowu his many streams. 

And the vast bulk of Krius prostrate falls. 

What shall I else? thy sudden front uprears 

The single vision of an ancient race, 

Radiant and no more irresolute. 

Sink, then, O slave, no longer high upheld 

Melodious communion shalt thou keep, 



PROMETHEUS. 309 

With the invisible elements, but below, 
Deep in impenetrable prisons pent, 
Dumb laboring with words unutterable, 
Unknown to thee, shall be the solemn swell. 
And ebbing of the stars from off the sky. 
The musical accord of winds below. 
And motion of the waves monotonous. 

PROMETHEUS. 

Joy ! joy ! fierce lightnings leap into thy eyes, 

And thy dilating statue terrible. 

Glowing with fire intense, threatens the world Q, 

With newer tyrannies. Lift up thy bolts 

And gather here together all thy gods. 

Once more to overwhelm me, for my heart 

Rushes unto my lips to hail the strife. 

In battle, O in battle, let it come 

That word of mine that is to end the world, 

Already do thy lightnings scorch my brow, 

jNIy limbs are riven. O brotherhood divine, 

Trampled upon and tossed tumultuous 

Beneath bright harnessed gods, look up with eyes 

Sick with immortal longing and regret. 

And witness what I do. Let there now be 

Instant division in the elements, 

Heave up ye vales and all ye ridged hills 



310 PROMETHEUS. 

Burst into fire and girdle all the world 

As with continuous sunrises, and ye 

Earth ever eating billows, overleap 

Your beaches, let the mountain barriers be 

No more impediment than wattled cotes, 

Unto your fury ; all ye airs uproll 

And vanish from the hollow void of space. 

Now my triumphant agony comes on ; 

Zeus writhes in pain, the realmless monarch writhes. 

Writhes at my feet, yet kingly still he turns 

Unalterably constant to my eyes, 

A still unwearying supreme smile of scorn, 

As the death hues climb over limb and limb. 

Up to his visage blotting him away. 

Chorus of Titans. 

The brief immortal dream is done. 
The stricken shapes of star and sun 
Vanish, the visionary light 
Is faded, but there is no night. 
The wind dieth to strange peace. 
The motion of the earth doth cease. 
And the sea's subtle harmonies 
Reverberate and rearise 
Under no skies. 



PROMETHEUS. 311 

Now our strong souls no more may thrust 
A song of triumph choked with dust 
Into the air ; no more may we 
Dim visages and visions see, 
Or entertain strange, wavering gleams, 
Eetreating and returning dreams. 
Gone every visionary guest, 
Down, down on each unquiet breast, 
Falleth sweet rest. 

Yet ere there be of all an end, 
Titans, a little hither bend 
Soft sighing and with solemn tears. 
Over the ruin of those years 
That wept for us with fiery grief, 
With falling rain, with fading leaf; 
That ever over mortals shed 
Flowers, and gave unto the dead 
A fit, fair bed. 

That Ave, although we may not strew 
Branches of laurel or of yew 
Over the grave of Time that is, 
Although something our song may miss 
As our voices grow weak and fail, 
May utter in this season pale 



312 PROMETHEUS. 

Some sweet words of the thiugs that were 
And forms that grew up ia the air 
Solemn and fair. 

Because as gods we saw the birth 
Of the most sanguine-hearted earth, 
And of the fiery-fronted stars ; 
Because the cahu of space was ours, 
And the dead years before our face 
Brought dreams of the divinest grace. 
Brought lips to touch and limbs to take 
And forms whose breasts did flower like brake 
But for our sake. 

All passion was for us, and all 
Desires and deeds majestical ; 
All thoughts were tried, and no regret 
For pleasures unaccomplished yet 
Can touch us. In our glorious life 
We felt all joy of calm or strife; 
And now that the wan world is cleft 
We can depart with nothing left, 
Of nought bereft. 

Kiss and clasp hands and for a space 
Grow to each other in embrace 



PROMETHEUS. 313 

Gods aud deep bosomed deities, — 
But let not the self-i^ityiug ease 
Fill eyes or set our breasts ashake 
With sorrow for our own sweet sake. 
But to Death's weltering solitude 
Move ouward, earth's imperial brood. 
In noble mood. 

Touch the lyre and the lute low breathe, 
Make music and our tresses wreathe 
With flowers and odorous blossoms sweet, 
Linked and with unreluctant feet, 
And faces that forget all bliss, 
We move into the dread abyss. 
Untouched, uneager, unafraid. 
Vision to vision now we fade 
And are unmade. 

PROMETHEUS. 

Proudly ye pass, ye old divinities, 

Lyre playing, calmly smiling, singing sweet, 

Into oblivion. Last my fading eyes 

Distinguishes, diminishing aud gone 

The vision of your many visages. 

Woe, woe, that we should vanish with our realms! 

Yet if again these empires should arise, 



314 PROMETHEUS. 

Mysteriously built above the foam 

Aud billowy abysses of the void, 

Delicate regioned and with towered space, 

Aud equable calm levels, varying lights 

And serene atmospheres unfathomable. 

Full thronged with unfamiliar forms of life, 

And images unrisen in the mind, 

And, if again a power should assume 

Sway and the domination of such realms. 

May some soul, fallen like mine on evil days, 

Put half joys from him and all wavering hopes, 

And with undaunted heart again decree 

Ruin aud wreck that is the end of all. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE. 

Ah ! many, many pipes are blown afield, 
Old reeds, new notched, of hoar antiquity ; 
And many shepherds woo the muse to yield 

Some magic, matchless cry : 
Some murmur of the old immortal art, 
That made divine with ghosts of the dear dead 
Baise and" the Mediterranean, 
Till with eternal tears her tragic heart 
Wells over, and her feet we thought had fled 

Turn back to us again. 
Then why should he who was as great as they, 
Graced by her breath with unforgotten strains. 
The mightiest singer in our minstrelsy, 
Sleep on unsung beneath his new-world sod? 



316 EDQAB ALLAN FOE. 

Though pipe or lute unto my touch obey, 
Music is in my heart, music that pains, 
. Music and pity for a shape passed by, 
Music for music's god, — 
And for the master of all shadowy fears, 
Shuddei'ing anguish and more sudden tears. 

For he was not of mortal progeny; 
Born in the under-world of utter woe, 
Sad, sombre poet of Persephone, 

His home he did forego. 
And came among our unacquainted meads. 
Pale, mid all statues of a mortal birth, 
Pure, mid all images that knew not death. 
What cared he for day's gaudy, glowing deeds, 
The fiery-blowing flowers of the earth, 

Or the wind's lusty breath ? 
Still did he long for the black shades and deep, 
Still for the thickets inextricable. 
Still for the empty shadows of the gods. 
Still for the hueless faces of the dead ; 
Still did he wander backward in his sleep, 
Down the long slopes and intricate of hell. 
Still sang he of his echoless abodes. 

His visions vanished ; 
Still to new instruments of a new art 
He gave the fiery passion of his heart. 



EDGAR ALLAN POE. 317 

In vain for him the constellations rode 
Tranquil aud large on their eternal heights; 
In vain each changing day came with its load 

Of unforeseen delights ; 
In vain rose every god, in every hue 
Of love, of languor, passion, joy or Avrath ; 
In vain all visions of the air did come ; 
He knew the secret of his birth ; he knew 
The low, the lost, the oft-lamented path, 

That led uuto his home. 
He had not seen stern Aides in a dream, 
Nor the wan gaze of sad Persephone, 
Nor the bronzed architecture of hell's gates. 
The sanguine forest overshading all ; 
He had not heard the lapping of that stream, 
Lethe, in fancy only, nor did he 
Alone, in visions, listen to the Fates' 

Low laughing in that hall. 
Too wise he was with memories of his youth, 
To change, for gaudy shows, death's awful truth ; 

All secrets were disclosed unto his glance, 
He saw each ultimate, high tragedy, — 
Saw Juliet, rising from her second tz*ance. 

Heard waked Ophelia's cry ; 
Doubt not, all sentenced souls before him past, 



S18 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 

Infant to peaance, or one thing with pain, 
Alike forever new to agonies, 
That on his heart, their pallid looks aghast 
Sunk, and forever rose to him again 

With their eternal ejes. 
Doubt not he sought sortie figure wandering there, 
Doomed to her lover to be ever strange. 
Some splendor banished from being as a star, 
Fallen, alas ! by sorrow, — not by sin, — 
That he sang to her in that sullen air 
Till their souls grew imjoatient of all change. 
Slow pacing as hell's heavy hours are. 

Till their lives seemed to win 
A happiness beyond the hope of man. 
Ethereal, effortless, Elysian. 

Methinks I see them, wandering in the glooms 
Of the great pillared forests of that realm, 
Roofed by the arches of bright-burnished blooms 

Hung as to overwhelm ; 
Or allied in a season more august, 
The Autumn of that awful foliage. 
When the blood-painted leaves turn into black, 
Lingering, while upon their souls are thrust 
Imaginations, vaster than engage 

_ Their vision-potent track. 
I see his fiery eyes divide the night, 



EDGAB ALLAN POE. 319 

I see her perfect beauty, faded to 
Memorial aud melancholy grace, 
Their parted limbs for uuiou eloquent ; 
I see the passion, tlie desire, the might 
That is not linked to any earthy hue, 
That is not set in any mortal face. 

Love ever evident, 
I see aud turn, — and on the earth behold 
Fruition faint aud fleeting hours of gold. 

Forget the sunset's gorgeous alchemy. 
The magic of the frail and faded moon. 
The pale, pei'petual wizards of the sky. 

The dread enchanter, — noon. 
O, dwellers on the ever-dreaming earth. 
Throw off the charmed habit of your life. 
The comfortable glamor of your sleep ; 
Severe indeed is death and harsh the girth. 
Naked the valleys of eternal strife, 

Single of hue, the deep ; 
But real is his great figure that does rear 
Those livid horizons' illumining. 
Rapt he, before whose usual act does fall 
The excess of all earth's existences ; 
He sees no pause in the processional fear. 
Monotony no dumb relief can bring, 
No license of such dreamy interval, 



320 EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 

As in earth's busy press ; 
But passion comes, passion that never fades. 
Unto the tragic singer of the Shades. 

But, ah ! he left, he vanished from that scene, 
The intense limits of the world of woes, 
And on earth's theatre of tender green 

A blasted vision rose, 
Mist-managed pageantry from ocean slips. 
Built faded from fresh foam, and meteors fall 
Black, blank upon the earth o'er which they shone ; 
But never darken they in such eclipse 
As he, so radiant in the under hall, 

When rose he to our own : 
Faded was his eternal grace of limbs. 
Thin rang his voice, through the thick-thronged hills, 
Faint were the fiery changes of his face, 
Faded the passion of his awful eyes. 
Starred, supreme shape of night, whom daylight dims, 
Viewless he went amid life's garish ills ; 
He could not wait 'till twilight owned his race. 

Dusk, his new dynasties : 
Wan, vacant presence and neglected guest. 
Earth placed no throne for him, whereon to rest. 

Poppy, therefore, and every poisonous growth 
Took he, that could transport his soul away 



EDGAR ALLAN FOE. 321 

From his wide prisou ;— for his eyes were loth 

And weary of the day. 
And every steed he chartered, that did go 
A little on the journey from the earth ; 
And joined each distance-seeking caravan, 
Where e'er the waves did roll, or the winds blow 
O'er this world's abrupt and precipitous girth, 

Swiftly his spirit ran. 
Drunk with imaginations, drunk with wine. 
Drowsy with dreams or waking with de^^ires. 
He sat at Pleasure's feet and would not rise, 
Enamored of oblivion in vain. 
Pleasure, no more smooth-lipped, no more divine, 
But burning with unfathomable fires, 
With melancholy in her mighty eyes, 

With proud lips curbing pain. 
Long there he sat, while in a cup she gave 
Most bitter drink for thirst, and the salt Avave. 

Last Death arose.— Then he, the hungry-eyed. 
Rose to the spectre, with embraces rude. 
Love's tender violence unto a bride. 

With low-toned words long wooed. 
There was a little music to be heard, 
There was a kindling splendor in the air, 
And he, our king of song, had come and gone. 
Earth felt no more than if a twig had stirred. 



322 EDGAR ALLAN POE. 

With some bird slipping off, onward to fare, 

And men seemed not to mourn. 
Tlie pageant of the hours passes on, 
Earth has its harvests, wakes, and works, and lives' 
Glory and gladness, like twin gods, do sw'ay, 
Aud nought is gone of our accustomed joj's ; 
But when the year unto an end has drawn, 
When Autumn fills the air with fugitives, 
When sadness rises with the rising day. 

Then do we miss his voice 
Who knew the sombre heart that nature wears 
Under her blazonings aud gorgeous airs. 

Now may we make our plaint, and bid him peace, 
And say " farewell" who said not " welcome" too ; 
O mourning mouths, be done your music, cease 

Praising and pitying, too ! 
He needs no carved trophies on his tomb, 
No sober figures for his funeral urn, 
No requiem of loud song or trumpet blasts. 
A greater homage yet shall he assume. 
An altar in each heart for him shall burn 

As long as sorrow lasts. 
As long as Autumn, or the dim twilight, 
Usurp the seats of Summer or throned Day, 
As long as shadows thicken in our minds, — 
He reigns, who was the very spirit of strife. 



ODE ON THE BURIAL OF SUMMER. 323 

Who was primeval to the hoary night, 

Who was the god and image of decay ; 

Aud all the tossed waves aud storm-strickeu winds 

Of distressed, humaa life 
Answer to him, who, with the secret stars, 
Rises o'er chaos to renew its wars. 



ODE ON THE BURIAL OF SUMMER. 
I. 

What fervent and funereal pipes are set 
To shape one ditty from the shifting air? 
What notes of wild reluctance, what regret 

Sobs through the tree-trunks bare? 
Alas! I did not know the earth had lost 
Its treasury of Autumn in the trees. 
Its golden sunset's ingot-heated mine, — 
Fool of unfathomed moods, I had almost 
Forgot to challenge the chill-changed breeze. 

Or ask what star did shine : 
But too loud is the wind, too cold its breath 
For longer dreaming iu the o{)eu fields ; — 
Grown fuller have the forests' flutes and ta'en 
An organ energy for angrier blasts. 
I wake, and see the Summer struck with death. 
Spite of her gaudy armor aud gold shields. 



324 ODE ON THE BURIAL OF SUMMER. 

I see her eyes alter and film with pain, 

And death her limbs recasts, 
Till on the hills she stretches wan and grey 
In the divinity of her decay. 

II. 

Ay, thou art dead, Summer, and now art borne. 

In pastoral state, with sylvan retinue, 

Through the sere stubble, through the woods forlorn, 

Paths leaf-obliterate through ; 
And hearsed harvests follow in thy track, 
In heajDed wains heavy with yellow sheaves 
And purple vintage overcolored, 
And the bronze-builded reapers do not lack, 
Nor girls with aprons bulging out with leaves 

For burial favors shed ; 
Askance the kine look from their pastures chill. 
The trembling sheej) bleat from their ridged slopes, 
The barren woods are wider for thy path 
That fettered thee with foliage in thy prime, — 
So, with such pomp, with dirges that do fill 
Earth, thou dost go, until before thee opes 
Some fathomless cavern that the forest hath, 

Where all the acts of Time 
A shadowy empire and existence keep, 
Divulged only to the eye of sleep. 



ODE ON THE BURIAL OF SUMMER. 325 

III. 

Summer, farewell ! Vows for thee I have paid 
By every altar, oak-built or of elm, 
Aud offered incense to appease thy shade 

Thi'ough thy once fragrant realm ; 
In empty lanes and alleys dispossessed, 
I breathe thy name with a funereal prayer, 
Adding all adorations of regret; 
I mark the places where I was thy guest, 
Folded in thine inmost embrace, or whei-e 

On thy throne I was set. 
Whate'er of glory through thy realm was blown, 
What shapes were vivid in thy vanished sway, 
Rise to me, and my hopes and visions dead ; 
And the aged, withered grasses I do press, 
Where, idly under thy oak pillars thrown. 
Oft have I dreamed an age into a day, 
Or through thy gorgeous halls hung overhead, 

Cloud-portalled palaces. 
O'er barriers aud bridges of the gods. 
Wandered at will through untold periods. 

IV. 

Farewell ! Farewell ! Ah ! not for thee alone 

I echo iterations over again ; 

True, thou hast gone, but with thee, too, is flown 



320 ODE TO TWILIGHT. 

One more sui:)i'erae for jmin; 
That heel-wiuged, happy moulded, divine shape. 
That blown, abandoned image of a god. 
Glad youth, has faded from my fainting heart; 
Following thy footsteps from me did he 'scape. 
Therefore, I follow wherever thou hast trod, 

In hope he may up-start. 
Little cared I for seasons when with him 
Lightly and lyrically passed I on, 
When unreal shapes and colors of romance 
Clothed the misclouded, miscreated earth, 
When never sky grew dull or forest dim. 
But up we rose as from a horizon, 
To make Aurora and the hours dance, 

And give the Avorld new birth. 
But he is gone — and with him all he gave, 
And fitly lay I him in Summer's grave. 



ODE TO TWILIGHT. 

Gone is each fiery sunset guest. 
Each rose-crowned reveler of the air, 
Thro' ruined portals of the West 
They crowd to some mysterious lair ; 



ODE TO TWILIGHT. 327 

But as they fade oi* blacken there, 
They usher in a newer charm, 
And many a starry blazon fair 
Upon a sky still flushed and warm 
Comes out with look austere and breathing faint and calm. 

Now, Twilight, risen from earth's rim. 
Thy realm before thy footing fades, 
More than immortal, tho' so dim, 
Thou movest over darkened glades ; 
I see thy dew-enciuctux'ed maids 
Sweep after thee in shadowy bands, 
I see about thee in the shades 
The changing shapes of many lands, 
And heaven built up anew beneath thy forming hands. 

Day bares to us his ruddy face, 
Frank eyes and fresh, unfaded hair. 
But all of thine immortal grace 
Hides in the hollows of the air, 
Save where upon .the herbage fair, 
We hear thy softly falling feet; 
Or, when within some dusky lair, 
Thy vague mysterious eyes we meet 
And dream of depths divine with longings sad and sweet. 



328 ODE TO TWILIGHT. 

Twilight, about thy steps the earth 
Is wrapped in billowy ebb and flow, 
Like seas, uiigathered to their girth, 
The lawns are swelling, sinking low. 
The woods, like mists, rise soft and slow, 
The distant summits melt and meet, 
The towers are leveled at a blow, 
And in the surf about us beat 
Like waifs on some grey beach flung up unto our feet. 

The dew from drooping lilies drips 
Like tears that leave a cheek more pale. 
The roses close their paled lips 
Over their beauty like a veil, 
The violets and pansies fail. 
Strange breaths are weighting every wind. 
We may not say of any gale 
Such perfume here or here we find 
From unknown flowers blown and gardens of the mind. 

The noisy echoes, one by one. 
Mantled in muflling masks depart ; 
The cricket's drowsy hum alone ^ 
Makes melody in woodland mart ; 
Earth, sleeping under magic art. 
Breathes but the music of its spell, 



ODE TO TWILIGHT. 329 

Save ^vhere some quickly throbbing heart 
Becomes a motion audible, 
Or where mid distaut stars is born a dying swell. 

Now to thy touches faint yet felt 
Soul after soul doth wake and rise; 
Away the earth's embraces melt, 
Each nakedly and newborn lies 
With shadowy things to sympathize. 
No more the fleshly prisons bar 
The soul encircled but by skies, 
That beckons unto shapes afar 
And bends a god to gods, and moves to stars a star. 

Low cares and toils rfire linked to day ; 
Something to earth is due, we deem, 
Nor can we break its sordid sway 
By long continuance supreme ; 
But now about us is the gleam 
Of other worlds and other laws. 
We clutch the garments of a dream, 
And hear the planets without pause 
Go chauntiug on their path of ancient kings and wars. 

'Tis only at its birtli or death 
The secret of a thing is seen, 



330 ODE TO TWILIGHT. 

The losiug of a little breath 
Makes plain what any life may mean; 
So now, that starry spaces lean 
Above some passion on the grass, 
The placid soul may see serene, 
Mid mirrored moments as they pass, 
Some secret, sovran face flush fairily life's glass. 

Twilight, the Magi on their steeps 
Often upon thy steps have hung, 
The Druids in wan forest deeps 
Their faintly cadenced rhymes have sung. 
And censers sweet before thee swung. 
To stay thy oft delaying flight; — 
And thou by supreme pity wrung 
Hast bared unto their blasted sight 
Thy dream of perfect limbs and faces' awfnl light. 

We, thy unveiling, too, will dare, 
Tho' death come down the charm to keep. 
For life will widen unaware 
And be no more perplexed with sleep 
Like a sky tumbled in a deep. 
It may not be. The mists are torn, 
Pied shadows in the sunlight leap; 
And far o'er cloudy bridges borne. 
Exultant hours lead out the laughing lovely morn. 



ALADDIN. 331 

ALADDIN. 

Leagues of garden, 

And miles of stone, 
My genii is building 

For nie alone. 

He outdoes all fancy, 

That slave of the lamp, 
And amid the stars 

My towers encamp. 

But he cannot recover. 

And build up anew, 
The home of my mother 

My childhood knew, 

E.osa beleagured 

And vine beset, 
With a light and fragrance 

That comes to me yet. 

I weary of splendor 

In palace halls ; — 
I would I could visit 

Those old grey walls ; 



332 POET AND MODEL. 

And hear my mother 
Spinning away, 

While I wander and idle 
Careless at play. 

Ah ! my genii is building 
Dome upon dome, 

But he cannot rebuild me 
My mother's home ! 



POET AND MODEL. 

Somehow her arm its sleeve slipped thro'. 
— Miracles, I believe in you. 

" O what a fame 'twould be, could I 
Model that immortality." 

" Poet, in verses make it live — 
Glory to both perchance 'twill give." 

" I'll try. From the slim wrist it swerves, 
Climbing up in continual curves" — 



SONG. 333 

"AVhat? Must you measure every part? 
Too realistic is your art." 

" Such is the p'*aise zeal ever gets. 
May I not test my epithets?" 

" Wicked ! And now I must resign 
All thought to live in stone or line." 

" Not quite. I've just put into verse 
That shyly peeping foot perverse." 

" Ah yes ! and I must go, I see, 
In pieces to posterity." 

" Never ! but aid, but trust me, yet 
Art thy full golden form shall get." 



SONG. 



Song's clearest crystal spring 
Is swelling in my breast; 

O, it leaps, and out would fling 
That wild and dancing guest. 



334 SONG. 

But ah, my breath is curbed, 

For all about I see 
Visions that must not be disturbed, 

Of hoar antiquity. 

Upon the couched sods. 

About me in a ring, 
Lie sleeping the world-weary gods 

After long wandering. 

One in a starry dream, 

One frozen in his mirth. 
One wreathed with yellow serpents' gleam 

Upon the dusky earth. 

And therefore do I make 

No music in the air, 
Lest from their dreams these gods should wake 

And about them stare. 



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